Instead of a Letter

Diana Athill was born in England on December 21, 1917. She was educated at Oxford University. During World War II, she as a researcher with the BBC. She worked as an editor at Allan Wingate and then at André Deutsch. Athill started writing autobiography in her early 40s. Her memoir, Instead of a Letter, was published in 1962. Her other memoirs included After a Funeral; Make Believe; Alive, Alive Oh!; Stet; Yesterday Morning; and A Florence Diary. Somewhere Towards the End won a Costa Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other works included a volume of short stories entitled An Unavoidable Delay and a novel entitled Don't Look at Me Like That. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2009. She died on January 23, 2019 at the age of 101.

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