Ordinary People - Softcover

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 dramatization. She is a former dancer, and as a journalist and critic has contributed to Marie Claire, TheIndependent, The Guardian, the Observer, The Times, The Telegraph, Financial Times and Harper's Bazaar, among others. Ordinary People is her third novel. She lives in London.

"The soap-opera trajectory of Evan's Ordinary People has a movie quality. It could easily be reimagined for the screen, though the film would not capture the sheer energy and effervescence of Evan's funny, sad, magnificent prose." —The Guardian (UK)

"[An] impressively controlled tale of marital disharmony, parental ambivalence and lost identity. . . . It's a rewarding and ruthlessly funny novel." —The Times (UK)

"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. In short, it's a joy from start to finish." —Literary Review

"Amid this emotional quagmire—featuring bereavement, redundancy and depression— there are many fine-grained depictions of the kind of day-to-day life most novelists pass over. This is a wonderful novel—generous, clear-sighted and rich with the old-fashioned pleasure of characters you're left impatient to revisit. An absorbing, beautifully written slice of London life unsung by most literary fiction." —Metro (UK)

"The agony of ordinary life is also what makes Ordinary People an absorbing read. Evans gives us an entirely believable account of relationships, recognising how they defeat us, encircle us and leave us gasping for air." —Financial Times (UK)

"A wonderfully warm and intelligent novel." —Red (UK)

"Intensely relatable." —Independent (UK)

"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 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 sings with every word. The writing is pitch perfect, the underlying politics of race and gender is never heavy handed and the characterization 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 Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

"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)

"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, author of Mr Loverman

"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, co-founder of Allison & Busby and editor of Daughters of Africa

"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