Andrea Levy author page

Andrea Levy biography

Andrea Levy was a British author known for her novels exploring the experiences of British Jamaicans and the Windrush generation. She was born in London to Jamaican parents. Levy studied textile design at Middlesex Polytechnic before turning to writing in her thirties.

Her debut novel, Every Light in the House Burnin’, was published in 1994. This was followed by Never Far from Nowhere in 1996, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. In 1999, she published Fruit of the Lemon, which further examined themes of identity and heritage.

Levy’s fourth novel, Small Island, was published in 2004. The book won the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Whitbread Book of the Year, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the Orange Best of the Best. Small Island was later adapted for television and the stage.

Her fifth novel, The Long Song, was published in 2010. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The novel was also adapted for television by the BBC.

Andrea Levy’s work has been translated into multiple languages and is widely studied in schools. She died in 2019. Her final published work was the short story collection Six Stories & an Essay in 2014.