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Diana Evans

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Diana Evans

FRSL
Born1972 (age 51–52)
Neasden, London, England
OccupationNovelist
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Sussex
University of East Anglia
Period2005–present
Notable works26a (2005); The Wonder (2009); Ordinary People (2018)
Notable awardsSouth Bank Sky Arts Award
2019
deciBel Writer of the Year award
2006
Orange Award for New Writers
2005
Betty Trask Award
2005
RelativesMary Evans (sister)
Website
www.diana-evans.com

Diana Omo Evans FRSL (born 1972)[1] is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written four full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers,[2] the Betty Trask Award[3] and the deciBel Writer of the Year award.[4] Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction[5] and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature.[6] A House for Alice was published in 2023.[7]

As well as writing fiction, Evans contributes essays and literary criticism to the national press.[8] She was honoured as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.[9]

Background and education

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Evans is the daughter of a Nigerian mother and an English father. She was born and grew up in Neasden, north-west London, with her parents and five sisters, one of whom was her twin.[10] She also spent part of her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria.[11]

She completed a media studies degree at the University of Sussex.[11] While in Brighton, she was a dancer[12] in the African dance troupe Mashango.[11]

She completed an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.[11] At the age of 25 she became a journalist. She contributed human-interest features and art criticism to a range of magazines, journals and newspapers in the UK; published interviews with celebrities; worked as an editor for Pride Magazine[13] and the literary journal Calabash.

Writing

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Her first novel, 26a, "a Bildungsroman that centres its storyline on the growing process of a pair of identical twins of Nigerian-British origin, Georgia and Bessi"[14] growing up in Neasden, was published in 2005 to wide critical acclaim and has since been translated into 12 languages.[15] It was shortlisted in the first novel category for both the Whitbread Book Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers.[16] Literary critic Maya Jaggi said in The Guardian of 26a: "The writing is both mature and freshly perceptive, creating not only a warmly funny novel of a Neasden childhood ... but a haunting account of the loss of innocence and mental disintegration."[17] Carol Birch, writing in The Independent, said of 26a that "Evans writes with tremendous verve and dash. Her ear for dialogue is superb, and she has wit and sharp perception" and though she has her criticisms, concludes that Evans "has produced a consistently readable book filled with likeable characters: a study of loss that has great heart and humour."[18] According to Diriye Osman in the Huffington Post: "Here was a Bildungsroman of such daring and sustained elegance that it felt like a gorgeous dance of a novel. In many ways, it is apropos that this book which focused on the secret bond that exists between twins was followed in 2009 by the equally masterful The Wonder, a novel rooted in the world of dance."[19]

Evans' second novel, The Wonder (2009), explores the world of dancing in the context of Caribbean immigration to the UK, London gentrification, and the bond between father and son.[2][12] Maggie Gee, writing in The Independent, called it "a serious work of art, with sentences like ribbons of silk winding around a skeleton of haunting imagery. ... The Wonder's most central achievement is to explore what art means in human life. ... This second novel, both powerful and delicate, lacking in linear plot but rich in the poetry of human observation, proves that Evans has what she calls 'the watch-me, the grace note' that marks a true artist."[20]

Her third novel, Ordinary People (2018), is a portrait of family life for two black couples in their 30s in South London in a year bookended by the election of Barack Obama and the death of Michael Jackson.[13][21][22] Ordinary People was the winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Rathbones Folio Prize.[6][5][23][24]

Her fourth novel, A House for Alice, was published in 2023,[25][26] characterised as "the first memorialisation of Grenfell in fiction",[27] it received Evans's second shortlisting for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.[28] Harper's Bazaar described the novel as 'a state-of-the-nation masterpiece'.[29]

Also a journalist, Evans has contributed essays and literary criticism to Marie Claire, The Independent, The Observer, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, Time, The New York Review of Books and Harper's Bazaar.[11][30][31]

She is an associate lecturer of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women in the UK.[32] She is also a 2014–16 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London College of Fashion and a 2016–17 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Kent.[16]

Publications

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Novels

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  • 26a, London: Chatto & Windus, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7011-7888-8
  • The Wonder, London: Chatto & Windus, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7011-7797-3
  • Ordinary People, London: Chatto & Windus, 2018, ISBN 978-1784742157
  • A House for Alice. London: Chatto & Windus, 2023. ISBN 978-1784744267.[33][34]

Short stories

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Awards

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References

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  1. ^ Evaristo, Bernardine (June 2005). "Diana Evans in conversation". Wasafiri. 20 (45): 31–35. doi:10.1080/02690050508589961. S2CID 161088288.
  2. ^ a b c Jaggi, Maya (22 August 2009). "The Wonder by Diana Evans". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  3. ^ a b "The Betty Trask Prizes and Awards". Society of Authors. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  4. ^ a b Crown, Sarah (30 March 2006). "Boy wizard beats chef to win book of the year". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  5. ^ a b c "Revealing the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist". Women's Prize for Fiction. 28 April 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  6. ^ a b c Chandler, Mark (8 July 2019). "Diana Evans scoops South Bank Sky Arts literature prize". The Bookseller. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  7. ^ "A House for Alice by Diana Evans: capturing the intricacies of volatile relationship dynamics". The Irish Times. 22 April 2023. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
  8. ^ "Diana Evans". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  9. ^ a b Flood, Alison (30 November 2020). "Royal Society of Literature reveals historic changes to improve diversity". The Guardian.
  10. ^ Saner, Emine (25 April 2005). "Don't call me the new Zadie". Evening Standard. Retrieved 15 June 2017.
  11. ^ a b c d e "Diana Evans". Random House. Archived from the original on 27 August 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  12. ^ a b Shilling, Jane (7 August 2009). "The Wonder by Diana Evans: review". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  13. ^ a b Allardice, Lisa (19 March 2018). "Diana Evans: 'It wasn't until my twin passed away that I had a really important story that I wanted to tell'". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  14. ^ Pérez-Fernández, Irene (July 2013). "Embodying 'twoness in oneness' in Diana Evans's 26a". Journal of Postcolonial Writing. 49 (3): 291–302. doi:10.1080/17449855.2012.681218. hdl:10651/18410. S2CID 162193161.
  15. ^ "Biography" Archived 27 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Diana Evans website.
  16. ^ a b "Diana Evans: Novelist, Short-story writer, Non-fiction writer", Royal Literary Fund.
  17. ^ Jaggi, Maya (28 May 2005). "Two into one". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  18. ^ Birch, Carol (25 March 2005). "26A by Diana Evans". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 26 March 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  19. ^ Osman, Diriye (13 January 2015), "The Delicate Lyricism of Diana Evans", Huffington Post.
  20. ^ Gee, Maggie (4 September 2009). "The Wonder, By Diana Evans". The Independent. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  21. ^ Beckerman, Hannah (25 March 2018). "Ordinary People review – a deft portrait of marital angst". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  22. ^ Akbar, Arifa (11 April 2018). "Ordinary People by Diana Evans review – magnificence and marital angst". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  23. ^ a b "The 2019 Shortlist | The Rathbones Folio Prize". Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  24. ^ a b Bookseller staff (10 June 2019). "Burns and Evans make Orwell Prize for Political Fiction shortlist". The Bookseller. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  25. ^ Anderson, Hephzibah (4 April 2023). "A House for Alice by Diana Evans review – vivid tale of a homesick matriarch". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
  26. ^ Atkins, Lucy (9 April 2023). "A House for Alice by Diana Evans review — a sequel to Ordinary People". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 26 April 2023 – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  27. ^ Collins, Sara (25 March 2023). "Interview: Diana Evans: 'The Tory rhetoric asks us to forget, I'm trying to make sure that we don't'". The Guardian.
  28. ^ a b "A House for Alice | The Orwell Foundation". www.orwellfoundation.com. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
  29. ^ https://www.pressreader.com/uk/harpers-bazaar-uk/20230501/282196540212021. Retrieved 3 August 2023 – via PressReader. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  30. ^ Evans, Diana. "Meghan Markle: Time Person of the Year Runner Up". Time. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  31. ^ "Diana Evans". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  32. ^ Patrons Archived 13 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine, SI Leeds Literary Prize.
  33. ^ Nelson, Franklin (14 April 2023). "A House for Alice by Diana Evans — family life, female empowerment and a place to call home". Financial Times. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
  34. ^ Lowry, Elizabeth (22 March 2023). "The ghosts of Grenfell haunt this novel of middle-aged life and loss". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
  35. ^ "Deep Night, Dark Night | Shakespeare's Globe". Shakespeare's Globe. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  36. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Short Works, Singular by Diana Evans". BBC. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  37. ^ "The Guardian First Book Award 2005". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  38. ^ "Whitbread 2005". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  39. ^ "Commonwealth Writers' Prize Shortlist Announced". Commonwealth Secretariat. 26 January 2006. Archived from the original on 26 March 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  40. ^ a b Evans, Diana (2 March 2006). 26a. www.penguin.co.uk. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  41. ^ "Alumni D - F - UEA". www.uea.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
  42. ^ a b "diana evans writer, novelist, author, UK - ordinary people". Diana Evans. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
  43. ^ Evans, Diana (7 March 2019). Ordinary People. www.penguin.co.uk. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  44. ^ "Meet our Finalists – The Precious Lifestyle Awards". preciouslifestyleawards.com. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
  45. ^ Mansfield, Katie. "Women dominate Goldsboro Glass Bell Award shortlist | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  46. ^ "Découvrez la deuxième sélection du Prix Femina". Le Figaro (in French). 8 October 2019. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  47. ^ "Grand prix des lectrices Elle : chroniques - Blog Lettres & caractères". Lettres & caractères (in French). Retrieved 7 March 2020.
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