Diana Evans
Diana Evans
Diana Omo Evans FRSL is a British novelist, journalist and critic. Evans has written four full-length novels. Her debut novel 26a (2005) won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the deciBel Writer of the Year award. Her third novel Ordinary People (2018) was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. Her other novels i
"There are so many expectations placed upon us, so many restricting places in which we are supposed to place ourselves in order to function in the world. There is often a struggle to hold on to who we are through all of this; either we lose the struggle and we are lost, almost deadened, or we simply dont survive at all…"
"Racial history lays so heavily on black people – slavery, migration, racism. But I don’t want my characters to be hidden by that…"
"Suicide is generally seen in a very negative way and, though it is tragic and devastating, Ive learnt from losing my own twin that theres a positive and magical side to it as well. Its about a person freeing themselves. It is actually a very courageous thing to do. To leave can be braver than to just stay here and struggle on, never knowing whether youll ever be happy."
"I feel it is something that I have to do for my children, to be able to give them a book that has kids like them in it, just incidentally. They are not the side character, they are not there as a novelty, they are just the characters. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. People need to see themselves reflected in the culture around them."
