Our feminist fact file Nicola Dinan - our author for Books You Should Be Talking About!

You may or you may not have seen - but we have recently launched our brand-new segment: Books You Should Be Talking About! And to kick this off, our first book is Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan.

To really bring this segment to life, we’ve had our book club board member, Ilona Bannister record a video on our Instagram page, noting all the reasons why this is the book of the month.

But, our wonderful summer intern, Sofia Pal, has also created a fact file - listing all the things we can learn about Nicola Dinan. Thank you so much Sofia and we hope you enjoy reading!

Who is Nicola Dinan?

Nicola Dinan is a British-Malaysian novelist who grew up in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur, and now lives in London.

After completing her undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, Dinan converted to law and spent the following years at a firm. It was not until her mid-20s, after working on a short story that would become her first novel, that Dinan chose to leave the world of law and pursue her passion for writing. 

How did Nicola start writing?

In 2021, Dinan attended the Faber Academy: Writing a Novel Workshop. She notes how the course was fundamental in bringing together a community of like-minded creatives in an otherwise ‘isolating profession,’ instilling her with the confidence and know-how to complete a final draft of her electric debut, Bellies.

What was Nicola’s first title?

Bellies was published by Doubleday in 2023. The novel went on to win the highly acclaimed Polari First Book Prize, was shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards and Mo Siewcharran Prize, and was longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize and Gordon Burn Prize. Playful and poignant, Bellies is an intoxicating examination of our capacity to love, to forgive, and to understand one another.

Dinan captures the rhythmic pulse of the modern metropolis, and calls into question themes of devotion, sacrifice and self-evolution against the backdrop of this dynamic setting. Bellies has quickly become a fierce frontrunner and must-read of contemporary queer literature.

Learning more about Disappoint Me

Dinan hit the ground running with Bellies, and her latest novel, Disappoint Me– our Book Club pick for ‘Books You Should Be Talking About’–  has all of the wit, intimacy and allure of its predecessor. Dinan encourages us to reflect on our own sense of disappointment, suggesting that we should embrace rather than suppress it. The novel destigmatises shame, failure, and aimlessness, insisting that these are inevitable facets of aging and changing. A self-proclaimed ‘serial quitter,’ Dinan demands that dysfunction is an inescapable– and even necessary— part of self-growth. 

Themes in Nicola’s books

Both Bellies and Disappoint Me explore what it means to be mixed-race and transgender in London. Dinan’s novels are distinctly autobiographical in this way, reflecting her own confrontation with the ‘struggles of heteronormativity’ and the ‘contingency of racial identity.’ In each of her novels, Dinan investigates how those who have been marginalised from society address universal anxieties such as career choices and life partners. Her work is captivating in its exploration of identity, particularly in its presentation of complex trans characters whose flaws are merely a celebration of their humanity. 

Dinan has described the process of writing her characters as ‘a little bit like dating them,’ as she rarely pre-plots their narrative journey, instead making decisions in real-time as she writes. Because of this, characters like Disappoint Me’s Max and Vincent are complicated and surprising, taking on a life of their own. Dinan never appears to judge them. The tone of Disappoint Me is brilliantly sardonic and effortlessly witty, with her direct, blunt sentences perhaps informed by her background as a lawyer. 

What is next for Nicola?

Nicola Dinan is currently editing her third novel, and writing her fourth, whilst also tutoring on the Creative Writing MA course at Royal Holloway. Her debut, Bellies, is in the process of becoming a screenplay.