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I Want to Talk to You
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  • Published: 7 February 2027
  • ISBN: 9781529932959
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $35.00

I Want to Talk to You

And Other Conversations

Formats & editions
Paperback
7 Feb 2027
EBook
6 Feb 2025
Audiobook
6 Feb 2025
Tr. Paperback
4 Feb 2025
Hardback
6 Mar 2025
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WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE -- Portraits of icons from Maya Angelou to Viola Davis, collected alongside dazzling essays and criticism by the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of Ordinary People

**WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE**

'A pleasure and an invigoration' Guardian
'A moving, witty and seductive anthology' Financial Times
'Every piece feels beautifully sewn together and complete’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO

Crafted over twenty-five years, I Want to Talk to You invites you into a conversation about literature, art and music, identity, grief and everything in between

As a young journalist, Diana Evans was catapulted overnight into the role of culture editor, going on to interview a roster of stars including Lauryn Hill, Viola Davis, Alice Walker and Edward Enninful.

In these portraits of contemporary icons, the author remains the observer. Alongside them, in pieces collected here for the first time, we also see her turning the lens on herself. We watch as she dances on 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 navigates 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.

'Truly insightful, conversational and unique... Absolutely brilliant' ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS
'Intimate and moving... Elegant in tone and finely wrought in form' EKOW ESHUN
'A celebration of a career that has been anything but ordinary and an intellectual mind forever evolving' CHARLIE BRINKHURST-CUFF
  • Published: 7 February 2027
  • ISBN: 9781529932959
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $35.00
Categories:

About the author

Diana Evans

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
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Also by Diana Evans

Ordinary People
The Wonder
26a
See all

Praise for I Want to Talk to You

Luminously questioning, always intelligent and unafraid of confronting the impact others can have on us

ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS, author of The Three of Us

A celebration of a career that has been anything but ordinary and an intellectual mind forever evolving. A blueprint for all of us straddling between fiction and journalism, who want to create meaningful, transcendent work

CHARLIE BRINKHURST-CUFF, editor of Mother Country

An intimate and moving meditation on the mysteries of writing and the pleasures of reading. Elegant in tone and finely wrought in form, it is a deeply insightful, and also profoundly enjoyable, collection

EKOW ESHUN, author of The Strangers

There is a depth and integrity to Diana Evans’s writing; every piece feels beautifully sewn together and complete

BERNARDINE EVARISTO

Evans’s nonfiction marries that faith in the value of subjective experience to a fierce intellect; the result is a fascinating overview not only of a writer’s evolution but of the shifts in our understanding of art as…"activism and community"

Stephanie Merritt, Observer

Thoughtfully layered pieces... deeply personal

Megan Conner, Red

A pleasure and an invigoration

Alex Clark, Guardian

Perceptive and empathetic... This was always going to be a book that grabs you by the lapels and insists on you listening but all the same, you do emerge impressed and better informed -- and also kind of windswept and happy

Sue Gaisford, Financial Times

[A] compelling collection of essays… an insightful examination of both the cultural and deeply personal events that have influenced the making of a great writer

Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2025*