Deborah Levy is a British novelist, playwright and poet. In her early career she wrote mostly for the theater before later switching to fiction. Her notable books include the Booker-shortlisted novels Swimming Home and Hot Milk, as well as the Booker-longlisted The Man Who Saw Everything.
Deborah Levy was born 1959 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her father, Norman, was a member of the African National Congress and a prominent anti-apartheid activist. He spent time in the Old Fort Prison awaiting trial with Nelson Mandela. After his release from subsequent spell in prison he eventually decided to flee South Africa in 1968 with his wife Philippa and their children.
Arriving in the UK, the family lived above a men’s clothing shop in London where both parents worked. Her parents were divorced in 1974 when Deborah was 15.
After school she worked for a time in the Gate Cinema in Notting Hill and it was there she met filmmaker Derek Jarman. Indeed it was Jarman that recommended she go to Dartington College of Arts in Devon, where she enrolled the next year to study theater.
Work
After finishing up college in 1981, Levy would initially forge a path as a playwright. She wrote successful plays, Pax and Heresies for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Her first published work was a short story collection Ophelia and the Great Idea which was released in 1985. Her early novels were Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography and Billy and Girl. There was also a collection of poetry called An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell published in 1990.
It wasn’t until Swimming Home was released in 2011, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012, that her career really took off.
Personal Life
She married her husband, playwright David Gale in 1997. During this time she was teaching, adapting plays for the radio, raising two daughters, and living with her family in an unassuming house in north London. Her writing career met with modest success. However that was about to change, as was much of her life.
Living Legacy
In 2010, at the age of 50, the acclaimed writer was divorced and living in a new flat.
By 2012 Levy’s life was transformed. Her novel, Swimming Home – a sun-kissed tale about a family holiday on the French Riviera, was shortlisted for the 2012 Booker Prize
And since then, the success has continued. Black Vodka, a collection of ten short stories, was published in 2013. Another novel, Hot Milk was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and The Man Who Saw Everything was longlisted. In between she has published three volumes of her Living Autobiography, Things I Don’t Want to Know, Real Estate and The Cost of Living. In these she considers writing and womanhood with great insight.
In May 2023 her latest novel August Blue was released and it’s another masterpiece.
If you haven’t read any of Deborah Levy’s work then we would highly recommend you do. She’s a wonderful writer, her prose is unsurpassed and her work is very readable. Levy’s work has a unique quality, it seems to infiltrate the mind. You absorb her way of viewing the world and begin to experience it through her eyes.
Best Deborah Levy Books
Swimming Home - An enthralling depiction of the ties that divide and bond an ordinary group of Londoners on vacation in the south of France. Each is shaped by their past, as each struggles to build a livable life in a social environment that gives little comfort or support under its mask of sunshine, beaches, and holiday vibes..
Hot Milk - Two women arrive in a Spanish seaside town. Rose is suffering from a mysterious illness that puzzles the doctors. Her daughter Sofia has brought her here to find a cure with the controversial Dr Gomez. Intoxicated by the heat and the alluring people who move through it, both women begin to see their lives clearly for the first time in years.
August Blue - A vivid portrait of a long-held identity coming apart, August Blue expands our understanding of the ways in which we look to find ourselves in others and reinvent ourselves anew. Elsa Anderson is a popular pianist who thinks a look-alike is shadowing her across her European tour.
The Man Who Saw Everything - In 2016, Saul Adler is hit by a car on Abbey Road. In hospital he spends the following days slipping in and out of consciousness, and in and out of memories of the past. A number of people gather at his bedside. But someone important is missing.
If you enjoyed this, check out our recommendations for the Best British Books of the 21st Century.
