Diana Evans

Diana Evans (born 1971), also known as Diana Omo Evans, is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. She has written two full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers,^[1] the Betty Trask Award^[2] and the deciBel Writer of the Year award.^[3] 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."^[4]

Also a journalist, Evans has written for publications including Marie Claire, The Independent, The Observer, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times and Harper’s Bazaar.^[5]

Background and education

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. She also spent part of her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria.^[5]

She completed a Media Studies degree at the University of Sussex.^[5] While in Brighton she was a dancer^[6] in the African dance troupe Mashango.^[5]

She completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.^[5] At the age of 25 she became a journalist. She contributed human-interest features and art criticism to different magazines, journals and newspapers in the UK; published interviews to celebrities; worked as an editor for Pride Magazine and the literary journal Calabash.

Evans' twin sister committed suicide^[6] in 1998.

Writing

Her first novel, 26a, "a Bildungsroman that centers its storyline on the growing process of a pair of identical twins of Nigerian-British origin, Georgia and Bessi"^[7] growing up in Neasden, was published in 2005 to wide critical acclaim and has since been translated into 12 languages.^[8] 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.^[9] 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."^[10] 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."^[11]

Evans' second novel, The Wonder (2009), explores the world of dancing.^[1][6] 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."^[12]

As well as writing fiction, Evans reviews books for the national press,^[13] and teaches courses and workshops on journalism and creative writing at venues that have included the Arvon Foundation and Royal Holloway College.^[5] She is a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women in the UK.^[14] She is also a 2014–16 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London College of Fashion.^[9]

Bibliography

Novels

• 26a, London: Chatto & Windus, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7011-7888-8 
• The Wonder, London: Chatto & Windus, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7011-7797-3 

Short stories

• "Journey Home", in Newland, Courttia; Kadija George (2000), IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain, London: Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 978-0-241-14074-1 .
• "The Beginning", in McCarthy, Karen (2003), Kin: new fiction by black and Asian women, London: Serpent's Tail, ISBN 978-1-85242-852-5 .
• "Another Saturday Night (Sam Cooke, 1963)", in Too Much Too Young: The Book Slam Annual Vol. II, London: Book Slam Productions, 2012, ISBN 978-1-908615-58-9 .

Awards

• 2005: winner, Orange Award for New Writers, for 26a.^[1]
• 2005: Betty Trask Award, Society of Authors, for 26a.^[2]
• 2005: longlist, Guardian First Book Award, for 26a.^[15]
• 2005: shortlist, First Novel category, Whitbread Book Awards, for 26a.^[16]
• 2006: shortlist, Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book category, for 26a.^[17]
• 2006: winner, deciBel Writer of the Year award, British Book Awards, for 26a.^[3]

References

External links

• Official website