Diane Setterfield Quote
People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.
Diane Setterfield
People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.
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About Diane Setterfield
Diane Setterfield (born 22 August 1964) is an English author whose 2006 debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale, became a New York Times No. 1 best-seller. Setterfield won the 2007 Quill Award, debut author of the year, for the novel. It is written in the Gothic tradition, with echoes of Brontë sisters' Jane Eyre (1847) and Wuthering Heights (1847).
The rights were acquired by David Heyman at Heyday Films and the novel was adapted for television by Christopher Hampton. Starring Vanessa Redgrave, Olivia Colman, and Sophie Turner, The Thirteenth Tale was televised on BBC Two in December 2013.
Diane Setterfield's second novel, Bellman & Black, was published in 2013 by Emily Bestler Books/Atria in the United States and by Orion in the UK. Her third novel, Once Upon a River, was published in 2018.
Before writing, Setterfield studied French literature at the University of Bristol, earning a bachelor of arts in 1986 and a PhD in 1993. Setterfield's PhD is on "autobiographical structures in André Gide's early fiction." Setterfield taught at schools as well as privately before leaving teaching in the late 1990s.
Setterfield grew up in Theale, Berkshire. She lives in Oxford, England.
The rights were acquired by David Heyman at Heyday Films and the novel was adapted for television by Christopher Hampton. Starring Vanessa Redgrave, Olivia Colman, and Sophie Turner, The Thirteenth Tale was televised on BBC Two in December 2013.
Diane Setterfield's second novel, Bellman & Black, was published in 2013 by Emily Bestler Books/Atria in the United States and by Orion in the UK. Her third novel, Once Upon a River, was published in 2018.
Before writing, Setterfield studied French literature at the University of Bristol, earning a bachelor of arts in 1986 and a PhD in 1993. Setterfield's PhD is on "autobiographical structures in André Gide's early fiction." Setterfield taught at schools as well as privately before leaving teaching in the late 1990s.
Setterfield grew up in Theale, Berkshire. She lives in Oxford, England.