- Published: 04/10/2012
- ISBN: 9781847087072
- Granta Books
- 176 pages
After A Funeral
Diana Athill
This is the story of how and why a talented writer came to kill himself.
When Diana Athill met the man she calls Didi, an Egyptian in exile, she fell in love instantly and out of love just as fast. Didi moved into her flat, they shared housework and holidays, and a life of easy intimacy seemed to beckon.
But Didi’s sweetness and intelligence soon revealed a darker side – he was a gambler, a drinker and a womanizer, impossible to live with but impossible to ignore. With painful honesty, Athill explores the three years they spent together, a period that culminated in Didi’s suicide – in her home – an event he described in the journals he left for her to read as ‘the one authentic act of my life’.
£8.99
Only a few totally honest accounts of a human life exist. To see the truth of your own life you must have gotten beyong all illusions about yourself, and probably about the world, as well. Few of us do. Diana Athill is one of the few.
Washington Post
A book which gives a new dimension to honesty, a new comprehension to love
Vogue
Anyone who believes that human relationships are important cannot fail to be moved by this book
Daily Telegraph
From the Same Author
Diana Athill on Granta.com
Fiction | Granta Books
Don’t Look at Me Like That
Diana Athill
‘When I was at school I used to think that everyone disliked me, and it wasn’t far from true.’
Essays & Memoir | Granta 69
Editing Vidia
Diana Athill
‘I thought so highly of Vidia’s writing and felt his presence on our list to be so important that I simply could not allow myself not to like him.’
Essays & Memoir | Granta 69
Lessons
Diana Athill
‘My two valuable lessons are: avoid romanticism and abhor possessiveness.’