Andrea Levy - live webchat - 18/2/2010

Andrea Levy was born in London, England in 1956 to Jamaican parents. Her first three novels explored - from different perspectives - the problems faced by black British-born children of Jamaican emigrants. Her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Every Light in the House Burnin' (1994), is the story of a Jamaican family living in London in the 1960s. Her second, Never Far From Nowhere (1996), is set during the 1970s and tells the story of two very different sisters living on a London council estate. In her third, Fruit of the Lemon (1999), Faith Jackson, a young black Londoner, visits Jamaica after suffering a nervous breakdown and discovers a previously unknown personal history.

Small Island, her fourth novel,( the historic winner of both the 2004 Orange Prize and the 2005 Whitbread Prize for Fiction), is set in 1948 and, through the stories of both English and Jamaican characters, it explores a point in England's past when the country began to change. It was successfully adapted for television in 2009. Her latest book is The Long Song.

About The Long Song:

"You do not know me yet. My son Thomas, who is publishing this book, tells me, it is customary at this place in a novel to give the reader a little taste of the story that is held within these pages. As your storyteller, I am to convey that this tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed. July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation named Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. She was there when the Baptist War raged in 1831, and she was also present when slavery was declared no more..."

Read more about Andrea on her author page

Buy the book

Comments

[Andrea Levy]

Thanks everyone for all your questions. It's been great talking to you. Just want to leave you with this: there's an actual link in the story between The Long Song and Small Island. I wonder if anyone will spot it.

[Andrea Levy]

Hannah, I'd never thought of that. I think probably both stories could have been set in other cities in England where people of Caribbean heritage settled. But being a Londoner myself that's where the stories occurred for me. Interesting thought though.

[Andrea Levy]

Yvonne, I first started writing Small Island in the third person, but it felt like there was a sheet of glass between me and the story. Only when I put the words into the mouths of each individual did the story come alive for me. I wanted to be able to see that world entirely through those characters' eyes. I was worried at first at having four first person narrators. Can you really write a book in that way? I wondered. Then I read Mathew Kneale's English Passengers, and that had twenty narrators, so four didn't seem that many. As for the success of Small Island – Oh how I wish I knew. It took me by complete surprise. Have you got any ideas why it was so successful? I'd love to know.

[Andrea Levy]

Mark, I haven't yet seen the new re-vamped exhibition in Liverpool, but I can't wait to get up there to see it.

[Andrea Levy]

Linda, Zadie Smith is a wonderful writer. We are often mentioned in the same breath, and I am very happy for that. But I do take your point, we are quite different as writers.

[Andrea Levy]

Leanne, Thank you for your lovely words, and for reading The Long Song – twice! Bless you. What usually happens is that I have an idea of something that interests me and I want to find out more about. Then I start to research around the subject in the hope that a story will jump out at me. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But I carry on regardless. To be honest with you Leanne, every time I get to the end of a book I look back at it and think 'how on earth did I write that?' It's inspiration and perspiration, but such good fun.

[Hannah Böttcher]

Hi Andrea! Would you agree that Small Island and Never far From Nowhere are typical "London stories" or could you have imagined them being set somewhere else?

[Andrea Levy]

Victoria, I love the idea that as we live our lives we can never know what coincidences and 'near misses' might have happened to us. Charles Dickens, I'm sure, would have tied it all up, but for me it was more satisfying that Hortense never found out.

[Yvonne McDonald]

Hi Andrea,

I'm studying for an MA in literature and wondered why you chose the narrative form of individual voices in Small Island?

Also, what do you put the success of Small Island, both the book and the drama, down to (apart from superb writing, of course!).

[Andrea Levy]

David, How fascinating. I'd love to know how you researched your ancestor. But as for me, as I could not find many testimonies from enslaved people, The Long Song is a work of imagination. But I found the information I needed to fire my imagination by reading the white people's accounts of the 'negroes' that lived around them in the Caribbean. But at the back of The Long Song there is a list of the books that helped me.

[Andrea Levy]

Bijoux. All my books are about me trying to find out about my own Caribbean heritage and the relationship between the Caribbean and Britain. The inspiration varies. In my early books many of the stories were based on my own experiences. In the later ones I've had to do a lot of research and use my imagination a lot more. I feel like I'm searching out a story – it's there somewhere, I've just got to find it.

[Andrea Levy]

Well Rosie, I write at the same time each day - around this time (2.30pm), and I usually only write for a couple of hours at the most (but if my editor is reading this then I write for eight hours at least!). For the first draft of any chapter, I like to write by hand, and so I go to my local library. But then after that I write on my computer at home. And I write every day (except weekends) whether I'm in the mood or not.

[Andrea Levy]

I'll answer Rodney and Dorothy together, if I may. For me it's not so much the writers as the books they have written that are my major influence and inspiration. So here are some examples:
The Women's Room by Marilyn French, made me love fiction.
James Baldwin's story, Going to meet the Man, made me realise how powerful fiction could be. Kazuo Ishiguro's the Remains of the Day, made me relaise that fiction should aim to be a work of art. I could go on...but it would take too long and I'm not that good a typist.

[Andrea Levy]

In non-fiction there is a great deal of scholarship on the Caribbean slave trade and slavery. But in fiction most of the books that I have read have been about the African American experience of slavery. But Caryl Phillips, Fred D'Aguiar, Bernardine Evaristo, Laura Fish, Barry Unsworth - and probably others that I've accidently forgotten and who will now be upset with me...sorry - have all tackled the subject.

[Andrea Levy]

No, I wasn't involved in the filming and I didn't manage to make it to the set, as they filmed it all in Belfast. Obviously there are a lot of changes that had to be made to get it from a book to the screen, but I think the result kept the spirit and tone of the book very well. It was a great piece of television drama. I hope they repeat it soon. I've seen it about twenty times and each time I end up crying...and I wrote it!

[Mark McKellier]

Have you visited the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool? If so, what did you think?

[Linda Thompson]

Dear Mrs. Levy, You have often been compared with Zadie Smith. Do you think this is a fair comparison? Do you think you have anything in common with Smith besides the obvious, that is, being both award-winning Black British writers?Though I admire both Smith's and your novels, I feel you have little in common in terms of themes or style.

[Leanne Martin]

Hello Andrea, I am already on my second reading of "The Long Song". After much anticipation I have to admit that I find it truly captivating! There are so many things I'd love to ask you, because I've been so starkly and personally touched by your work since I first read "Small Island" years ago. I think what I'd love to know more about is how you "plan" each novel. Do you have an idea, an inspiration, and then do you follow a routine of researching material and devoting "x" amount of hours each day to write? Do you have to force yourself to follow a strict timetable or stick to deadlines?, or is it more relaxed than that? I'd love to know. Andrea, thank you for your work. You are a literary gem and a very special person. Very best regards, Leanne.

[Andrea Levy]

I thought they were superb too. I talked with the producers about the casting, and I suggested Benedict Cumberbatch for Bernard. But I had no more input than that. I met the cast before they started filming and was impressed by their committment to the project, and I think it shows in the result.

[Victoria Murray]

I want to thank you for the joyous read that is Small Island. Why did you decide not to reveal to Hortense that Michael Roberts was the father of Queenie's baby?

[David Monteith]

I was the subject of a documentary exploring the life of my great great great grandfather, who bought his freedom in the last days of legal slavery. As such I'm very interested in what sources you used to research The Long Song

[Bijoux]

Hi. Thanks for doing this! How do your stories come to you? Are they inspired by other people's or your own real experiences like with "Every light in the House Burning"? Are the stories fully formed or do they take on a new life once the writing process begins?

[Rosie Harris]

Do you have any writing rituals/habits that you need to do to get you in the mood?

[Dorothy]

Which writers would you say have been the major influences on your writing style and career?

[Rodney]

Hi Andrea, I'd like to ask what authors provided you with inspiration for your books?

[Alex]

Hi! Which other writers do you think have written well on the subject of the slave trade?

[Meg F]

I really enjoyed the TV mini-series for Small Island. Were you involved in the filming and were you happy with the result?

[Mark McKellier]

I thought the casting for the BBC series of Small Island was superb - one of the few times the actors on the screen matched those I'd imagined in my head when reading! Did you, Andrea, approve of the casting?