Andrea Levy

This edition is the prescribed text for the English Mastery Secondary programme.Hortense yearns for a new life away from rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots. In these three intimately connected stories, hope and humanity meet stubborn reality, tracing the tangled history of Jamaica and Britain.Andrea Levys epic novel Small Island, adapted for the stage by Helen Edmundson, journeys from Jamaica to Britain in 1948 the year that HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury. It premiered at the National Theatre, London, in April 2019, directed by Rufus Norris.Honest, skilful, thoughtful and important. This is Andrea Levys big bookGuardian on Andrea Levys Small Island

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...

Small Island is a hard act to follow, but in her new book Levy has moved into top gear - Observer

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.

A short-story collection from one of America's brightest young talents. In one of these intensely imaginative stories a young woman's furniture walks out on her. In another, the narrator feels compelled to deliver a takeout order that has incorrectly been phoned in to her. In a third, the petty details of a property transaction illuminate the complicated dependences and loves of a family. Following spiralling paths towards utterly logical, entirely absurd conclusions, Galchen's creations occupy a dreamlike dimension, where time is fluid and identities are best defined by the qualities they lack. The tales in this groundbreaking collection are secretly in conversation with canonical stories, allowing the reader the pleasure of discovering familiar favourites in new guises. Here 'The Lost Order' covertly recapitulates James Thurber's 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty', while 'The Region of Unlikeness' playfully mirrors Jorge Luis Borges's 'The Aleph'. By turns realistic, fantastical and lyrical, all these marvellously uneasy stories share a deeply emotional core and are written in dryly witty, pitch-perfect prose. Whether exploring the tensions in a mother-daughter relationship or the finer points of time travel, Galchen is a writer of eye-opening ingenuity.

Hortense yearns for a new life away from rural Jamaica. Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer. Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots. Three intimately connected stories, tracing the tangled history of Jamaica and Britain.Andrea Levys epic novel, adapted for the stage by Helen Edmundson, journeys from Jamaica to Britain in 1948 the year that HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury.Small Island was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in 2019, in an acclaimed production directed by Rufus Norris. This revised edition of the play was published alongside the revival of the production in 2022.Extraordinary. A spectacular adaptation of Andrea Levys Windrush novel - ObserverEdmundson has a knack for skilfully distilling story... ferociously entertaining - Time OutA landmark in the National Theatres history: a tumultuous epic about first-generation Jamaican immigrants... skilfully adapted... one of the most important plays of the year - Guardian

Set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed, this novel follows the life of July, a slave girl, who lives upon a sugar plantation named Amit

londres, 1948. l'angleterre est encore secouée par la guerre. au 21 nevern street vit queenie bligh, une belle femme de tempérament, élevée à la dure dans les midlands. son mari, bernard, n'est pas rentré des indes, où il servait dans la royal air force. pour survivre, queenie est contrainte de prendre des locataires, dont un couple de jamaïquains, gilbert et hortense. gilbert joseph vient lui aussi de faire la guerre sous le drapeau de l'empire et l'uniforme bleu de la raf. déterminé à rester à londres, il subit bon gré mal gré le racisme ordinaire. sa jeune femme, hortense, a toujours rêvé de vivre en angleterre, mais la mère patrie ne correspond pas à ce qu'elle imaginait à l'ombre des manguiers. andrea levy tisse avec une grande finesse d'observation un roman à quatre voix, teinté d'humour et d'émotion, pétri d'exotisme et d'humanité. en évoquant la rencontre et le métissage des cultures, elle pose avec intelligence la question de l'intégration. un grand roman, couronné de nombreux prix. unanimement célébré par la critique et le public.

In this delicately wrought and profoundly moving, multi-award winning novel, Andrea Levy handles the weighty themes of empire, prejudice, war and love, with a lightness of touch and a generosity of spirit that challenges and uplifts the reader.

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.

An emotional debut novel, both funny and moving, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction

En el invierno de 1948, Hortense, una joven maestra jamaicana, desembarca en Southampton para reunirse con Gilbert, su marido, tambien de Jamaica y tambien negro. Gilbert ha combatido en la RAF y quiere estudiar Derecho. Ambos soñaban con Londres, el centro del Imperio, y estaban desesperados por abandonar su "pequeña isla". Alquilan una habitacion en casa de Queenie, quien, como Hortense, ha utilizado el casamiento para huir de su provincia, y cuyo marido, Bernard, combatiente en la India y desmovilizado hace dos años, ha desaparecido misteriosamente, por lo que Queenie sobrevive alquilando habitaciones en su casa de Earls Court. Todos ellos descubriran que la guerra ha terminado pero que las batallas de la vida cotidiana pueden ser muy duras. Gilbert tendra que conformarse con un trabajo en Correos. Hortense aprendera que aqui es una oscura emigrante que no puede trabajar como maestra. Y Bernard, cuando por fin vuelve a casa, se encuentra con que tendra que vivir en una pension de negros.

You do not know me yet but I am the heroine of this drama. I am told that here I must give a taste of what is to unfold. I am to convey that this tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent days of slavery and the early years of freedom.I am to say that it is a true and thrilling journey through that unsettled time.Cha, I say, what fuss-fuss. Come, let them just see it for themselves.The Long Song is adapted from Andrea Levys award-winning novel by Suhayla El-Bushra. It premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in October 2021, directed by Charlotte Gwinner.

Este no es un libro sobre política. No del todo, vaya. Lo escribo después de haber dedicado doce años a la política, obviamente. Pero se trata de un relato vital de la última década, en la que lo personal y lo profesional eran un todo. Lo publico es solo el hilo conductor para exponer cual era mi realidad diaria mientras el dolor, principal sintoma de la fibromialgia que padezco, formaba parte de mi vida cada vez con mayor intensidad. De modo que esta historia habla sobre el dolor, aunque tampoco es un almanaque de salud o una guia medica. Es un relato para entender como lo urgente dio paso a lo prioritario, es decir, como la obsesion por querer alcanzar el exito y el reconocimiento profesional se impuso y evito que me detuviera ante las llamadas de atencion de mi propio cuerpo. Estas paginas van de como convivir con las debilidades de uno mismo o, al menos, como lo logre yo. Lo escribo ahora porque he aprendido que pretender ser perfecta cuando no eres capaz de gestionar las emociones te hace mas vulnerable. Y que intentar hacerlo a base de ansioliticos es una trampa muy peligrosa. Ahora se muy bien que todo dolor da miedo y que el propio miedo es un gran dolor.