I Want to Talk to You: And Other Conversations

by Diana Evans

I am sitting in bed next to Mariah Carey. She’s wearing a pair of tiny boxer shorts and a belly-airing vest. “You can lie down if you want”, she says. “I mean it’s fine, be comfortable, “ so I lean further back into the pillows, feigning being comfortable.

As a young intern at Pride magazine, Diana Evans was catapulted into the role of culture editor, and so began her career as a journalist, writing about musicians, dancers and artists, interviewing the likes of Viola Davis, Alice Walker and Edward Enninful.

In these portraits of contemporary icons, the author herself remains distant – always the observer. Alongside them, in essays and pieces collected here for the first time, we see her turning the lens to the personal. We watch as she dances across stages in London and travels through Cuba. We sit beside her desk as she develops her voice as a writer, shaped by her love for Jean Rhys, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. We walk by her side as she captures herself in the world – her family and the midlife sandwich, reflections on fashion, yoga, the British monarchy and lockdowns, and the lasting impact of George Floyd and Grenfell.

Crafted over twenty-five years, with the intelligence and sensitivity that Diana Evans is known for, I Want to Talk to You invites you into a conversation about literature, art, identity, and everything in between.

Genres: Memoir

245 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 6, 2025

About the author

Diana Evans was born and brought up in London. Her bestselling debut novel, 26a, won the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers and the British Book Awards deciBel Writer of the Year prize. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, the Guardian First Book, the Commonwealth Best First Book and the Times/Southbank Show Breakthrough awards, and nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second novel, The Wonder, was also published to critical acclaim, described by The Times as ‘the most dazzling depiction of the world of dance since Ballet Shoes‘. Evans was nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction for her third novel, Ordinary People, which was a New Yorker, New Statesman and Financial Times book of the year, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. Her fourth novel, A House for Alice, is the highly acclaimed follow-up, for which she was again shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Evans is a former dancer, and her journalism, criticism and essays appear in among others Time Magazine, Vogue, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Review of Books and Harper’s Bazaar. She has been an associate lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. www.diana-evans.com

Reviews

[Carmijn Gerritsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This non-fiction book explores the journalistic writings that novelist Diana Evans has shared over the last multiple decades, covering topics which are socio-cultural, political and personal at once. Through the inclusion of interviews with artists and authors, reflections on her own writing practice and inspirations, as well as her personal history in Britain, the collection is characterised by a unique and eclectic quality which provides a promising insight in the writer behind Evans' oeuvre. The dynamic interplay between her "journalism voice," her "fiction voice" and the role of self-reflexivity is central here. Overall, this was a wonderful book which has given me new perspectives on her work!

[Uzoamaka · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of essays and conversations Diana Evens have had with others over the years spanning over her journalism and writing career. Learnt a few things about Thadiwe Newton, Viola Davis, Mariah Carey and Diana Evans too. It was a pleasure to listen to the audiobook.