Diana Athill was born in 1917. She worked for the BBC throughout the Second World War before helping Andre Deutsch establish the publishing company that bore his name. For almost fifty years she was widely regarded as one of the finest editors in London, as well as a considerable and unjustly neglected writer. Two of what she called her 'documentary' books, After a Funeral and Instead of a Letter, anticipated the modern memoir in their directness and intimacy. After a Funeral is issued by Granta to coincide with the publication of Stet. Diana Athill lives in London NW3.