Andrea Levy

A tale inspired by the years on either side of 19th-century Jamaica's emancipation finds the willful slave Miss July moving into her mistress's great house, where she becomes a valuable confidante, learns to read and witnesses the Baptist War. By the Whitbread Book of the Year-winning author of Small Island.

A Novel

The Long Song

Small Island by bestselling author Andrea Levy won the Orange Prize for Fiction, as well as the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Whitbread. It is possibly the definitive fictional account of the experiences of the Empire Windrush generation. Now a major BBC drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Naomie Harris, its enduring appeal will captivate fans of Maya Angelou and Zadie Smith. 'A great read... honest, skilful, thoughtful and important' - Guardian It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was...

Small Island

From Andrea Levy, author of Small Island and winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year and the Best of the Best Orange Prize, comes a story of one woman and two islands. Faith Jackson knows little about her parents' lives before they moved to England. Happy to be starting her first job in the costume department at BBC television, and to be sharing a house with friends, Faith is full of hope and expectation. But when her parents announce that they are moving "home" to Jamaica, Faith's fragile sense of her identity is threatened. Angry and perplexed as to why her parents would move to a country they so rarely mention, Faith becomes increasingly aware of the covert and public racism of her daily life, at home and at work. At her parents' suggestion, in the hope it will help her to understand where she comes from, Faith goes to Jamaica for the first time. There she meets her Aunt Coral, whose storytelling provides Faith with ancestors, whose lives reach from Cuba and Panama to Harlem and Scotland. Branch by branch, story by story, Faith scales the family tree, and discovers her own vibrant heritage, which is far richer and wilder than she could have imagined. Fruit of the Lemon spans countries and centuries, exploring questions of race and identity with humor and a freshness, and confirms Andrea Levy as one of our most exciting contemporary novelists.

Fruit of the Lemon

A passionate and perceptive story full of the pain and the humour of growing up, from Andrea Levy, author of the Orange Prize winning SMALL ISLAND and the Man Booker shortlisted THE LONG SONG. NEVER FAR FROM NOWHERE is the story of two sisters, Olive and Vivien, born in London to Jamaican parents and brought up on a council estate. They go to the same grammar school, but while Vivien's life becomes a chaotic mix of friendships, youth clubs, skinhead violence, A-levels, discos and college, Olive, three years older and a skin shade darker, has a very different tale to tell...

Never Far from Nowhere

Angela's parents moved from Jamaica to England in 1948. Now, 20 years later, Mr Jacob is seriously ill, and moves unsteadily through the care of the NHS. As Angela tries to help her mother through the ordeal, she finds herself reliving her childhood years spent on a council estate in Highbury.

Every Light in the House Burnin'

Andrea Levy, author of the Man Booker shortlisted novel THE LONG SONG and the prize-winning, million-copy bestseller SMALL ISLAND, draws together a remarkable collection of short stories from across her writing career, which began twenty years ago with the publication of her first novel, the semi-autobiographical EVERY LIGHT IN THE HOUSE BURNIN'. "None of my books is just about race," Levy has said. "They're about people and history." Her novels have triumphantly given voice to the people and stories that might have slipped through the cracks in history. From Jamaican slave society in the nineteenth century, through post-war immigration into Britain, to the children of migrants growing up in '60s London, her books are acclaimed for skilful storytelling and vivid characters. And her unique voice, unflinching but filled with humour, compassion and wisdom, has made her one of the most significant and exciting contemporary authors. This collection opens with an essay about how writing has helped Andrea Levy to explore and understand her heritage. She explains the context of each piece within the chronology of her career and finishes with a new story, written to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. As with her novels, these stories are at once moving and honest, deft and humane, filled with insight, anger at injustice and her trademark lightness of touch.

Six Stories and an Essay

Finalist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize The New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year In her follow-up to Small Island, winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, Andrea Levy once again reinvents the historical novel. Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her "Marguerite." Together they live through the bloody Baptist War and the violent and chaotic end of slavery. An extraordinarily powerful story, "The Long Song leaves its reader with a newly burnished appreciation for life, love, and the pursuit of both" (The Boston Globe).

Written to mark the centenary of the outbreak of WWI, this short story by multi-award-winning, million copy bestselling author Andrea Levy tells the tale of two Jamaican service men in that conflict.

Uriah's War

陳敬旻

小島

THE AUTHOR OF SMALL ISLAND TELLS THE STORY OF THE LAST TURBULENT YEARS OF SLAVERY AND THE EARLY YEARS OF FREEDOM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY JAMAICA Small Island introduced Andrea Levy to America and was acclaimed as "a triumph" (San Francisco Chronicle). It won both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and has sold over a million copies worldwide. With The Long Song, Levy once again reinvents the historical novel. Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her "Marguerite." Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her "freedom." It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her son's persistent questioning, July's resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Qaisra Shahraz

Saeed Taji Farouky

Shereen Pandit

Displacement Stories of Identity and Belonging

Diese Sammlung von Short Stories enthält die Texte: Andrea Levy: Loose Change Shereen Pandit: She Shall Not Be Moved Saeed Taji Farouky: The Rain Missed My Face and Fell Straight to My Shoes Jhumpa Lahiri: The Third and Final Continent Qaisra Shahraz: The Escape

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Hortense et Queenie

Sur les conseils de son fils imprimeur, July entreprend le récit de sa vie en Jamaïque, en ce XIXe siècle qui voit l'abolition de l'esclavage. Née sur la plantation Amity, elle est la fille d'une "esclave des champs", travaillant dans les pièces de canne à sucre. Caroline Mortimer, tout juste débarquée d'Angleterre, s'attendrit devant cette enfant espiègle et l'arrache à sa mère pour en faire sa servante. Devenue esclave domestique, July va apprendre à vivre, à obéir, et à ruser dans une société coloniale à l'agonie. Le récit de July, c'est une voix unique, un franc-parler acquis dans les épreuves ; un regard acéré, souvent teinté d'ironie, porté sur elle-même et sur les personnages hauts en couleur qui croisent sa route ; un immense talent narratif, exprimé en des scènes foisonnantes ; tout un monde qui naît du souffle puissant de sa mémoire.

Andrea Levy

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