Diana Athill

Diana Athill OBE (born 21 December 1917) is a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who worked with some of the writers of the 20th century at the London-based publishing company Andre Deutsch Ltd.

Diana Athill was born in the English county of Norfolk and brought up in Ditchingham Hall. Her parents were Major Lawrence Athill (1888–1957) and Alice Carr Athill (1895–1990). Her maternal grandfather was biographer William Carr (1862–1925). Her maternal grandmother's father was James Franck Bright (1832–1920) a Master of University College, Oxford. Athill graduated from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in 1939 and worked for the BBC throughout the Second World War.

After the war, Athill helped her friend André Deutsch establish the publishing house Allan Wingate, and five years later, in 1952, she was a founding director of the publishing company that was given his name. She worked closely with many Deutsch authors, including Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Mordecai Richler, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Rhys, Gitta Sereny, Brian Moore, V. S. Naipaul, Molly Keane, Stevie Smith, Jack Kerouac, Charles Gidley Wheeler, Margaret Atwood, and David Gurr.