Diana Athill graduated from Lady Amrgaret House, Oxford in 1939 and worked with the BBC throughout WW2.
She helped André Deutsch set up his publish company and worked closely with many of his writers including Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Mordecai Richler, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Rhys, Gitta Sereny, Brian Moore, V.S. Naipaul, Charles Gidley Wheeler and David Gurr.
She retired in 1993 at 75, after more than 50 years in the publishing industry.
She was made an Ofiicer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009.
