The former editor on regrets, the advantages of old age and why she’s still writing at 100
A few days before her 100th birthday, Diana Athill is embarking on a new literary adventure. She has agreed to do a live webchat, answering questions from her fans in a digital present tense that barely existed when she finally decided to go into a retirement home eight years ago, let alone when she entered the publishing profession some 60 years earlier.
Her answers are characteristically splendid. On the pleasures of rereading: “Losing your memory has its advantages because sometimes you can pick up a book and not remember you’ve read it at all, and lo and behold you have.” Best advice you would give a woman about to embark on her 30s? “I should advise her to have a very good love affair, if she hasn’t had one already.”
In my family he used to be called the lodger and I never said he’s not my lodger he’s my lover
Related: Diana Athill webchat: your questions answered on Jean Rhys, love affairs and turning 100