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5 unusual facts about Diana Athill


Barry Reckord

After living most of his adult life in Britain, mostly with his companion Diana Athill, in the last few years of his life he returned to Jamaica, where he died.

Diana Athill

Her most remarkable affair, about which she later wrote a book, was "a fleeting, and distinctly odd" relationship with Hakim Jamal, an American Black radical who asserted he was God.

After the war Athill helped André Deutsch establish his publishing company and worked closely with many of his authors, 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.

Hakim Jamal

Jamal wrote From the Dead Level, a memoir of his life and memories of Malcolm X. He was romantically involved with several high-profile women, notably Jean Seberg, Diana Athill and Gale Benson.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky

Diana Athill wrote about her friendship with Motesiczky in her autobiography 'Somewhere Towards the End' (Granta, 2008).



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