大象传媒

In Diana Athill's story, An Unavoidable Delay, first published in 1962, Rose is travelling home from her holiday in Lubjiana when she encounters Paul and events take an unexpected turn.

The short stories collected in Midsummer Night in the Workhouse represent the start of Diana Athill's writing career. In the preface to the selection she says: 'I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958. Until that moment I had been hand-maiden, as editor, to other people's writing, without ever dreaming of myself as a writer.' Each of her stories draws on her own personal experiences and her keen observations of others.

Diana Athill was born in 1917. In 1946 she joined Andre Deutsch and went on to become one of the country's leading editors in a career spanning fifty years. She has also published six volumes of memoirs and a novel.

Read by Emma Fielding
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.