Andrea Levy, Small Island
Andrea Levy is an award winning British author whose stories explore the experiences of Jamaican British people. Small Island, Levy’s fourth novel won her critical acclaim and the 2004 Orange prize, the Whitbread book of the year and the Commonwealth Writers’ prize.
When deciding which author to feature in our summer school edit I immediately thought of Andrea Levy. Not only is Levy a world class story-teller, the stories that she tells need to be told more than ever. On the 22nd June we celebrated Windrush Day, 72 years since hundreds of passengers from the commonwealth arrived in their mother country, Levy’s father among them.
Levy began writing in her mid-thirties, setting out to write the novels that she, ‘had always wanted to read – entertaining novels that reflect the experiences of black Britons, that look closely and perceptively at Britain and its changing population and at the intimacies that bind British history with that of the Caribbean’.
Small Island follows four narrators, two couples. Gilbert and Hortense make the journey from Jamaica to London and come to lodge with Queenie Bligh when her husband, Bernard, has not returned from War. Small Island is an epic, when Helen Edmundson adapted it for the stage at the National Theatre in 2019 she told Levy, ‘adapting Small Island was as complex and important as adapting War and Peace. She loved that. She was, and is, one of the greats.” For me, the greatest tragedy within its pages is the rejection, loss and heartbreak Gilbert and Hortense experience upon their arrival in England, their Mother country, when they find not only does England not love them, it does not even know them.
When serving in the British RAF in World War Two a member of the public asks Gilbert why he chose to ‘leave a nice sunny place to come here if you didn’t have to?’ When Gilbert replies, ‘To fight for my country, sir,’ he goes on to describe to the reader his relationship with his Mother country, a relationship not recognised by the English characters in the novel and one that is still ignored when we examine British school history and literature curriculums.
“Let me ask you to imagine this. Living far from you is a beloved relation whom you have never met. Yet this relation is so dear a kin she is known as Mother. Your own mummy talks of Mother aa the time. ‘Oh, Mother is a beautiful woman - refined, mannerly and cultured.’ Your daddy tells you, ‘Mother thinks of you as her children; like the Lord above she takes care of you from afar.’ There are many valorous stories told of her, which enthrall grown men as well as children. Her photographs are cherished, pinned in your own family album to be admired over and over. Your finest, your best, everything you have that is worthy is sent to Mother as gifts. And on her birthday you sing-song and party.
Then one day you hear Mother calling - she is troubled, she need your help. Your mummy, your daddy say go. Leave home, leave familiar, leave love. Travel seas with waves that swell about you as substantial as concrete buildings. Shiver, tire, hunger - for no sacrifice is too much to see you at Mother’s needy side. This surely is an adventure. After all you have heard, can you imagine, can you believe, soon, soon you will meet Mother?
The filthy tramp that eventually greets you is she. Ragged, old and dusty as the long dead. Mother has a blackened eye, bad breath and one lone tooth that waves in her head when she speaks. Can this be that fabled relation you heard so much of? This twisted-crooked weary woman. This stink cantankerous hag. She offers you no comfort after your journey. No smile. No welcome. Yet she looks down at you through lordly eyes and says, ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’”
Naomie Harris and David Oyelowo as Hortense and Gilbert in the BBC’s adaption of Small Island
Levy’s Small Island leaves the reader in no doubt of this relationship, in all of it’s injustice and heartbreak. But I could not write about Levy’s work without mentioning her wit. Levy’s characters are optimistic, quick and she is a master of irony.
Add Small Island to your summer reading list, and if you have already read it - tell us what you think! The BBC adapted Small Island in 2009, and Levy’s last novel The Last Song in 2018, and both are a great watch. The Long Song is still available to watch on iPlayer. In the clip below Levy discusses wanting to write about her Jamaican heritage because she wasn’t taught about it in school.
Levy died on the 14th February 2019 from cancer. Her friend of twenty years, Gary Young, wrote a beautiful obituary for her which you can read here. Levy is a giant of British Literature and we couldn’t think of anyone better to have as our author on the Summer School edit.