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Athill, Diana

article by, [28] 61; After a Funeral, [2] 57

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An Attraction of Opposites

Anthony Sattin on Diana Athill, After a Funeral

Ghali wrote his novel while living in poverty in Germany. The book was published in 1964 by André Deutsch and, as a result, Ghali met Diana Athill, who worked at Deutsch and is now best known for her autobiography Stet. ‘I was a sucker for oppressed foreigners, and an oppressed foreigner who could shrug off hardship in order to look at things with the humour and perceptiveness shown in his book was one whom I would certainly like.’
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Uncomfortable Truths

Diana Athill on W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz

There is no book more haunting than W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. I would not advise anyone unfamiliar with his earlier books to make it their introduction to his work, because his decision to do away, in this one, with paragraphs, and the way in which the narrative unfolds, are disconcerting enough when first encountered to be off-putting. It is necessary to make an act of trust – to put yourself in his hands; and this may be a problem for anyone who has not yet learned to trust him by reading his wonderful The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and Vertigo. I doubt whether I would have persisted beyond the first thirty-odd pages of Austerlitz if I hadn’t already learned that wherever Sebald led, I must follow him . . .

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