Latest Athill to Granta

Granta has signed A Florence Diary, the latest book from the "much-loved and revered" author Diana Athill.

Editorial director Bella Lacey acquried world rights to the title from Rebecca Carter at Janklow and Nesbit.

A Florence Diary is the "charming and vivacious" diary of Athill’s trip to Florence in the late 1940s. "Written with an arresting immediacy and infused with an exhilarating joie de vivre, it is both a bright, colourful evocation of a time long lost and a vibrant portrait of a city that will be deliciously familiar to any contemporary traveller", the publisher said.

Lacey said: "Just after the war, aged 30, Diana Athill travelled abroad for the first time. A Florence Diary records that first exhilarating thrill of travelling beyond her homeland, and is a glorious and playful account of her adventures in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Like the mouth-watering pastries she eeks out her budget to buy each day, it is a delicious Florentine snack to savour, and should delight her many fans."

Publication is planned for Athill’s 99th birthday in autumn 2016.