Lapinski, a manipulative and magical Russian exile, summons forth a number of highly contemporary urban pilgrims. Through them, Levy explores broken dreams and self-destructive desires in a shimmering, dislocated allegory of its times. “It throbs its way into the imagination like the unguided missiles it decries.” – Observer Published by Penguin, 2014.
Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize, 2012 “This is an intelligent, pulsating literary beast” – Philip Womack, The Telegraph “[Swimming Home] unfolds with all the restrained, cool assurance of French Nouvelle Vague cinema, but this is tempered by an urgent optimism, an unashamedly compassionate portrayal of lives losing their way” – Scott Morris, Cadaverine “Readers will have to resist the […]
“A powerful novel of the interior life, which Levy creates with a vividness that recalls Virginia Woolf … Transfixing.” – Erica Wagner, The Guardian “Exquisite prose . . . Hot Milk is perfectly crafted, a dream-narrative so mesmerising that reading it is to be under a spell. Reaching the end is like finding a piece of glass on the beach, shaped […]
That spring when life was very hard and I was at war with my lot and simply couldn’t see where that was to get to, I seemed to cry most on escalators at train stations. Going down them was fine but there was something about standing still and being carried upwards that did it. From […]
Shortlisted for the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award Broadcast BBC Radio 4 2014 “Black Vodka is a ravishing read, and can be slurped down in one sitting; like all great modern short stories, Levy’s tales are served with an intrinsic emotional complexity that subtly nourishes the reader’s mind. …It is the inner darkness […]
Nietzsche had a name for his cancer. He called it Dog. Every time he was in pain, he screamed at the Dog. It is possible that all the dogs in Britain are pain dogs. Migraine dog, Depression dog, Backache dog, Loss Dog. The dog is called back, scolded, cajoled, kept a watchful eye on. The […]
Girl wears her famous tears like jewels. Like glass blown from grief. Each tear takes approximately five seconds to form in the corner of her eye. You’ve got to be careful when you ask Girl what she feels. Billy & Girl is both a joyful contemporary fairy tale and a hard hitting critique of the […]
“All of Deborah Levy is here. The narrative is constructed around the investigation of a murder, but its resolution is somehow incidental to the sadness, sexuality and violence with which every stunning sentence is charged. The body is such an important unit in Levy’s work, forever at work to express latent psychological trauma. She is […]
Like her namesake Jack Kerouac, J.K. is always on the road, traveling Europe with her typewriter in a pillowcase. From J.K.’s irreverent, ironic perspective, Levy charts a new, dizzying, end-of-the-century world of shifting boundaries and displaced peoples. “One of the few contemporary British writers comfortable on a world stage” – New Statesman and Society “She storms […]
In 1873 Nervosa Anorexia was born. = O Perhaps that’s what she is. Not here. Hardly there. There she is. There. There. Diary of a Steak, Levy’s witty take on the hysteria surrounding ‘Mad Cow Disease’, is both highly amusing and deeply disturbing. Written in the form of the diary of a steak in a […]