Levy, Andrea 1956-

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Levy, Andrea 1956-

PERSONAL: Born 1956, in London, England.

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Agent—c/o Picador, 175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010

CAREER: Writer. Former judge for Saga Prize and Orange Prize for Fiction.

AWARDS, HONORS: Arts Council Writers' Award, 1998, for Fruit of the Lemon; Authors Foundation Award, 2001; Orange Prize for Fiction, and White-bread Novel Award shortlist, both 2004, both for Small Island.

WRITINGS:

Every Light in the House Burnin', Headline Review (London, England), 1994.

Never Far from Nowhere, Headline Review (London, England), 1996.

Fruit of the Lemon, Headline Review (London, England), 1999.

Small Island, Headline Review (London, England), 2004.

Contributor of short fiction to anthologies and periodicals, including Mail on Sunday, You, Independent on Sunday, and Sunday Express.

SIDELIGHTS: Andrea Levy was born in London in 1956 to Jamaican immigrants. Growing up, Levy read nonfiction for pleasure, avoiding fiction, because she enjoyed books that enabled the reader to learn something and did not believe fiction provided that opportunity. In an interview with Carole Burns for Washington Post.com, Levy explained, "I love books that you feel once you've read them that they've added to the sum total of who you are. That you've learned something or you've been taken somewhere that was really worth going, because you understand something better now." At the age of twenty-three, she read Marilyn French's novel, The Women's Room, and began to realize there were other types of fiction than those she was required to study in school. She has been a voracious reader of fiction since that time, and in her early thirties began to write in the genre as well. Levy's novels focus on the experience of being black and British, and, like the fiction she enjoys reading, attempt to inform the reader as well as entertain.

Levy's first novel, Every Light in the House Burnin', recounts the story of a Jamaican family in 1960s London. The narrator is Angela Jacob, a young black woman born and raised on a council estate in London, who shifts between tales of her childhood and her present-day experiences. Levy followed up with her next book, Never Far from Nowhere, which tells the story of two sisters, Olive and Vivien, born and bred in London to Jamaican parents. The novel deals with the concept of belonging and the sensation of being torn between two cultures. Olive and Vivien are very different physically, one light and the other dark, and this plays heavily into the ways they identify themselves. Lucy Atkins, in a piece for the Times Literary Supplement, commented that "the structure of the novel, though conventional, does articulate a subjective process of interpretation and reinterpretation as the characters struggle to work out who they are." Atkins referred to the book as a "passionate and often angry novel."

Levy follows follows a similar theme in her third novel, the award-winning Fruit of the Lemon. The story reveals the ways in which its protagonist, Faith, has become confused about her true identity as a young black woman growing up in London and attending all-white English schools. Many of her ideas regarding her personal history have been gleaned from history lessons about slavery, causing her to imagine her parents coming to England in the hold of a banana boat. The novel follows her reeducation in social and personal history after she suffers a breakdown and her parents suggest she travel to Jamaica to recover, and she begins to learn about her own culture and roots. World Literature Today contributor Bruce King remarked that "although skillfully written and interesting, Fruit would have benefited from careful editing."

Small Island won the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel award. Set in 1948, the novel depicts Gilbert—an Royal Air Force recruit—his Jamaican wife, his white landlady Queenie, and Queenie's long-lost husband Bernard. Manchester Guardian reviewer Mike Phillips remarked of Levy that "her imagination illuminates old stories in a way that almost persuades you she was there at the time." He went on to comment that the book "is a great read, delivering the sort of pleasure which has been the traditional stock-in-trade of a long line of English novelists. It's honest, skillful, thoughtful, and important."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Levy, Andrea, Every Light in the House Burnin', Headline Review (London, England), 1994.

PERIODICALS

Guardian (Manchester, England), February 14, 2004, Mike Phillips, review of Small Island, p. 26.

M2 Best Books, June 9, 2004, "Andrea Levy Wins 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction."

Times Literary Supplement, January 12, 1996, Lucy Atkins, review of Never Far from Nowhere, p. 21; March 19, 1999, Katie Owen, review of Fruit of the Lemon, p. 24.

World Literature Today, summer-autumn, 2001, Bruce King, review of Fruit of the Lemon, pp. 146-147.