Ordinary People - Hardcover

Diana Evans is a British author of Nigerian and English descent. Her bestselling novel, 26a, won the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers and the British Book Awards deciBel Writer of the Year prize. It was also shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, the Guardian First Book, the Commonwealth Best First Book and the Times/Southbank Show Breakthrough awards, and longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second novel, The Wonder, is currently under option for TV dramatisation. She is a former dancer, and as a journalist and critic has contributed to among others Marie Claire, the Independent, the Guardian, the Observer, The Times, the Telegraph, Financial Times and Harper's Bazaar. Ordinary People is her third novel, and received an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award. She lives in London. @DianaEvansOP www.diana-evans.com

"Thoughtful and intelligently observed... Evans's delicate prose weaves issues of racial identity and politics into the narrative so that they never feel heavy-handed...a deftly observed, elegiac portrayal of modern marriage, and the private - often painful - quest for identity and fulfilment in all its various guises" * Observer * "One of the very many things that makes this book exceptional is the even-handed sympathy and unflinching fidelity with which Evans charts the changing weather both of her protagonists' emotions and family life. She excels at dialogue and she's also a soulful lyrical chronicler of London in all its moods and guises" * Daily Mail * "It could easily be reimagined for the screen, though the film would not capture the sheer energy and effervescence of Evans's funny, sad, magnificent prose" * Guardian * "There is something radical in how Evans depicts the lives of young, black people, faithfully, fully and quietly" * Financial Times * "Ordinary People is a very funny book...a reminder of the power that only the novel has: to show you a familiar world from someone else's perspective" * Evening Standard * "Sparkling... Rich, complex and quietly extreme, Ordinary People is a forensic study of human relationships, one that finds, like the best novels, universality in the specific. It is also a supreme London novel... In short, it's a joy from start to finish" * Literary Review * "Does literary fiction have a blind spot when it comes to race? When a novel like Diana Evans's Ordinary People feels unusual, you have to wonder... This is a wonderful novel - generous, clear-sighted and rich with the old-fashioned pleasure of characters you're left impatient to revisit" * Metro * "Intensely relatable" * Independent * "Diana Evans is a lyrical and glorious writer; a precise poet of the human heart" -- Naomi Alderman, author of The Power "That rarest thing: a literary novel about real, recognizable human beings-a poignant portrait of middle life in London's middle class. Evans has given us four thirtysomething characters so perfectly drawn that they seem to come from a brilliant Netflix dramedy, but has rendered them with a classical prose so confident that it seems to come from a 19th century novel. Beach reading for the thinking beachgoer: as intelligent and insightful as it is hilariously entertaining." -- Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go "Ordinary People is that rarest of books - a portrait that lays bare the normality of black family life in suburban London, while revealing its deepest psyche, its tragedies, its hopes and its magic. The words are infused with a beauty that leaves the reader spellbound and yet astounded by the familiarity of it all. I had not realised how much I longed for characters like these until I found them, brought alive here with such compassion. A wondrous book." -- Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish) "Ordinary People sings with every word. The writing is pitch perfect, the underlying politics of race and gender is never heavy handed, and the characterisation of south London is enviable. I know these streets and they beat to the music that runs through this book...a lyrical and beautiful story. It's a triumph" -- Christie Watson, author of The Language of Kindness "Diana Evans has an alluring sense of time, place and identity as she writes about the complicated turning points of life, delivering descriptions that are simultaneously subtle and vivid, stories both intimate and collective. Here are pages that deserve to be lingered over, savoured, and re-read." -- Margaret Busby "Diana Evans has masterfully crafted a beautiful, nuanced story about love, loss, and redemption. With compelling prose and an uncanny insight into the questions life throw at us as human beings, she has established herself as a voice to behold." -- Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun "Diana Evans writes exquisitely beautifully about the interior landscapes of human relationships set against the urban and suburban cityscapes of London. Her characters are portrayed with depth, perceptiveness and complexity, and through the descriptions of their emotional journeys, we discover a language to understand ourselves" -- Bernardine Evaristo "Evans' prose has a musical quality" -- Eithne Farry * Mail on Sunday * "A wonderfully warm and intelligent novel" -- Sarra Manning * Red * "13 new books to put a spring in your step', mention: `Ordinary London lives are captured with lyricism and integrity... A quiet, vividly-drawn novel about the moments of angst and joy that make up everyday life." -- Lucy Brooks * CultureWhisper * "Sheer energy and effervescence... Funny, sad, magnificent prose." -- Arifa Akbar * Guardian * "The agony of ordinary life is what makes Ordinary People an absorbing read. Evans gives us an entirely readable account of relationships, recognising how they defeat us, encircle us and leave us gasping for air." -- Shahidya Bari * Financial Times *