Andrea Levy

Andrea Levy ( born 1956 in London) is a British author.

Biography

Andrea Levy was born to a Jamaican immigrant couple in London. Her father and shortly after her mother came to England in 1948 to begin a new life there. For Andrea Levy meant to grow up as black in a very white London. This experience has, inter alia, impressively in her novel An English kind of happiness ( original title: Small Iceland ) processes, which won three major awards.

Andrea Levy grew up not far removed from the scene by Small Iceland. Racism was not mentioned in her parents' house. Andrea has almost exclusively white friends, and she does what all working -class kids are doing: listening to music, watches TV, largely ignored books and studied textile design.

By mid-twenties Andrea Levy works for a social institution and has to deal with the defense of racist attacks. During this time she experiences a kind of epiphany: You, who in the meantime worked in the costume department of the BBC and with her ( white ) husband Bill Mayblin founded a company for graphic design, discovers her own identity as a woman and as a black. At the same time she noticed the effectiveness of books. She starts excessively to read: While it is not difficult for her to find literature of black writers from the United States, they almost never meets literature of black writers from the United Kingdom.

With mid-30s she began to write for themselves what they want to know. Literature is a way of self-discovery for them - the world -discovery through world invention. Andrea Levy studied creative writing in London and even find an agent, which is not of course as Black British Writer in London in the early nineties.

In her first three novels, she sits down with the dreams of black immigrants in London and the problems with which they are confronted, apart. Her first - semi- autobiographical - novel Every Light in the House Burnin ' is about a Jamaican family in London in the 70s. Although it initially seems impossible, such a novel outside of the " community " to accommodate, as you will be semi- officially granted, the novel was published in 1994 anyway. The second novel of pioneer against his will, Never Far from Nowhere plays in 1970 and tells the story of two very different sisters who grow up in a council estate. He appears in 1996 and promptly lands on the longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction. In Fruit of the Lemon ( 1999) witnessed a young black woman in London a nervous breakdown and experiences on a trip to their relatives in Jamaica her own hitherto unknown history.

Then came the Halbjamaikanerin Zadie Smith - and broke up with her ​​bestseller White Teeth (German: show teeth) finally the spell that had been lying on the multiethnic contemporary British literature. For her most successful novel An English kind of happiness finally Andrea Levy, the position of those sitting on the fence of the cultures that use perfectly.

Andrea Levy is a Londoner with heart and soul. London is the central place to play all her novels. In addition to her novels, she writes short stories that are published on different media. Andrea Levy acts as adjudicator in the award of the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Orange Futures Prize and Prize of the saga.

Awards

  • 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction for Small Iceland
  • 2004: Whitbread Book Award (now the Costa Book Award ) for Small Iceland
  • 2005: Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Small Iceland

Bibliography

  • Andrea Levy: Every Light in the House Burnin ', Hodder & Stoughton; Edition: New Ed (8 August 1996), ISBN 0-7472-5213-0
  • Andrea Levy: Never Far from Nowhere, Hodder & Stoughton; Edition: New Ed (8 August 1996), ISBN 0-7472-5213-0
  • Andrea Levy: Never far from nowhere, Salt and Pepper, FfM. (January 2002), ISBN 3-927926-22-1
  • Andrea Levy: Fruit of the Lemon, Review; Edition: New Ed (3 February 2000), ISBN 0-7472-6114-8
  • Andrea Levy: Small Iceland, USA, Picador 2005, ISBN 0-7553-3126-5 ( first edition )
  • Andrea Levy: The English kind of happiness, Eichborn Verlag 2007, ISBN 3-8218-5772-2
  • The long song of life, German publishing institution, Munich 2011 ISBN 978-3-421-04483-9
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