Deborah Levy is an author of remarkable literary breadth, who began her career crafting plays acclaimed for their intellectual rigor and poetic fantasy. Discovering the exhilarating freedom of novel writing after her theatrical success, she has cultivated a distinctive voice that explores complex psychological landscapes. Her work often delves into themes of identity and the search for meaning, demonstrating a fearless approach to both form and content. Levy offers readers a provocative and unforgettable literary experience.
In "The Position of Spoons," Deborah Levy shares intimate reflections on her life and the literary muses that have influenced her. Through meditations on mortality, language, and gender, she offers a rich exploration of her experiences from South Africa to Britain, showcasing her profound writing and intellectual vitality.
In this brilliant, inventive, tragic farce, Deborah Levy creates the ultimate dysfunctional kids, Billy and his sister Girl. Apparently abandoned years ago by their parents, they now live alone somewhere in England. Girl spends much of her time trying to find their mother, going to strangers' doors and addressing whatever Prozac woman who answers as "Mom." Billy spends his time fantasizing a future in which he will be famous, perhaps in the United States as a movie star, or as a psychiatrist, or as a doctor to blondes with breast enlargements, or as the author of "Billy England's Book of Pain." Together they both support and torture each other, barely able to remember their pasts but intent on forging a future that will bring them happiness and reunite them with the ever-elusive Mom. Billy and Girl are every boy and girl reeling from the pain of their childhoods, forgetting what they need to forget, inventing worlds they think will be better, but usually just prolonging nightmares as they begin to create--or so it seems--alternative personalities that will allow them to survive and conquer and punish. In the end, the reader is as bewildered as Billy and Girl--have they found Mom and a semblance of family, or are, they completely out of control and ready to explode?
Essays
In der Essaysammlung Die Position der Löffel leiht uns Deborah Levy ihren Blick. Sie betrachtet ihre Lesebiographie, die Autor*innen, die sie prägten;Colette, Marguerite Duras, Elizabeth Hardwick, Simone de Beauvoir. Mal setzt sie Sigmund Freuds Brille auf und durchschaut die Neurosen der Gäste eines Wiener Kaffeehauses;Hysterie, ödipale Mutterliebe, Schwindel, Sachertorte. Sie betrachtet Künstler*innen und Kunstwerke;Meret Oppenheim, Lee Miller, Francesca Woodman. Sie schreibt ein Alphabet für die innere Stimme und eins für den Todestrieb, pflückt böse Blumen in Baudelaires’ Garten und folgt dem weißen Kaninchen durch einen Tunnel von Woolwich nach Anderswo. »Ist Anderswo zwischen deinen Ohren?« Poetisch, klug, manchmal surreal und immer mit einem untrüglichen, liebevollen Blick fürs Detail. Was, wenn es eine Rolle spielt, ob der Löffel zum gekochten Ei zeigt oder davon weg? Was verraten Socken und Schuhe über ihre Träger*innen? Was, wenn es wichtig ist, wem und was wir unsere Aufmerksamkeit schenken? Die Position der Löffel ist gleichzeitig Kurzgeschichtensammlung, kritische Theorie, Poetik und persönliche Bibliotheksführung. Levy-Lesende werden überall Bekanntes aufblitzen sehen, für Noch-nicht-Levy-Lesende gibt es einen neuen Kosmos zu entdecken.
A new novel from the Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy, the celebrated author of The Man Who Saw Everything and The Cost of Living. In Athens, a woman named Elsa glimpses her identical double. The other woman is buying two mechanical dancing horses. Elsa spends a month in pursuit of this enigmatic twin—a search that mounts to an uncanny, erotic encounter in a summer rainstorm. Deborah Levy's August Blue is a story of split selves, wayward selves, femininities, sexualities, avatars, shadows, reflections, alter egos, and the twin poles of compassion and cruelty that exist within all of us.
Deborah Levys kühnes Debüt erzählt von Außenseiter*innen, die rastlos und rasterlos leben und eben dadurch miteinander verbunden sind. In kurzen Passagen blickt Levy durch die Augen der schönen Mutanten auf die Welt. Sie erzählt von der russischen Exilantin Lapinski, ihrerseits eine Sammlerin von Geschichten, von der Poetin, die am Fließband tiefgefrorene Hamburger formt, vom Nachbarn, der Lapinski eine »schamlose Cunt« nennt, von der anorektischen Anarchistin und der pyromanischen Bankerin, die einst Gemma war, und von einem Lama. In Schöne Mutanten offenbart Deborah Levy eine Welt, deren Figuren aufbrechen und sich neu zusammen setzen, sich gegenseitig und ihre Leser*innen abstoßen und anziehen. Roh und bezaubernd und schön und vulgär. Eine provokative Prosa, die die Kerben, die Europa durchziehen, beschreibt und in den Bruchstellen Sonnenblumen pflanzt. Levy schreibt mit Scharfsinn und Witz und zieht das Groteske dem Naturalistischen stets vor. Vielleicht zeigt sich erst aus der Distanz die wahre Absurdität unserer Welt, in der zu leben offenbar bedeutet, Geld auszugeben.
'Three bicycles. Seven ghosts. A crumbling apartment block on the hill. Fame. Tenderness. The statue of Peter Pan. Silk. Melancholy. The banana tree. A Pandemic. A love story.' From one of the great thinkers and writers of our time, comes the highly anticipated final instalment in Deborah Levy's critically acclaimed 'Living Autobiography' 'I can't think of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman' Observer on The Cost of Living Following the international critical acclaim of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Deborah Levy's 'Living Autobiography' is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it. 'I began to wonder what myself and all unwritten and unseen women would possess in their property portfolios at the end of their lives. Literally, her physical property and possessions, and then everything else she valued, though it might not be valued by society. What might she claim, own, discard and bequeath? Or is she the real estate, owned by patriarchy? In this sense, Real Estate is a tricky business. We rent it and buy it, sell and inherit it - but we must also knock it down.' 'Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy's every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise... A brilliant writer' Daily Telegraph on The Cost of Living 'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor-sharp insights' Financial Times on The Cost of Living
Like her namesake Jack Kerouac, J.K. is always on the road, travelling 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.
This exciting new masterpiece from Deborah Levy, longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, is a beguiling fever dream of a novel. It offers an ice-cold critique of patriarchy and the darkness of 20th-century Europe. In 1988, Saul Adler, a narcissistic young historian, is hit by a car on Abbey Road but appears unscathed. After a brief encounter with his art student girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau, he leaves for communist East Berlin just months before the Wall falls. There, he meets his assigned translator and her sister, who claims to have seen a jaguar in the city. As Saul navigates love, his troubled relationship with his authoritarian father, and a friendship with a possibly dubious hippy named Rainer, he grapples with the complexities of history and memory. The narrative slips between time zones, exploring what we perceive and overlook, the consequences of carelessness, and the burdens of history. Levy's electrifying prose is described as clever and raw, presenting a dizzying tale that challenges conventions and delves into life across time and borders.
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY WINNER OF THE PRIX FEMINA ETRANGER 2020 Following on from the critically acclaimed Things I Don't Want to Know, discover the powerful second memoir in Deborah Levy's essential three-part 'Living Autobiography'. 'I can't think of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman' Observer _________________________________ 'Life falls apart. We try to get a grip and hold it together. And then we realise we don't want to hold it together . . .' The final instalment in Deborah Levy's critically acclaimed 'Living Autobiography', Real Estate, is available now. _________________________________ 'I just haven't stopped reading it . . . it talks so beautifully about being a woman' Billie Piper on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs 'It is the story of every woman throughout history who has expended her love and labour on making a home that turns out to serve the needs of everyone except herself. Wonderful' Guardian 'Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy's every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise . . . a brilliant writer' Daily Telegraph 'A graceful and lyrical rumination on the questions, "What is a woman for? What should a woman be?"' Tatler 'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor-sharp insights' Financial Times
Taking George Orwell's famous essay, 'Why I Write', as a jumping-off point, Deborah Levy offers her own indispensable reflections of the writing life. With wit, clarity and calm brilliance, she considers how the writer must stake claim to that contested territory and shape it to her need. It is a work of dazzling insight and deep psychological succour, from one of our most vital contemporary writers. This first volume of the trilogy focuses on the writer as a young woman - the confusion and turbulence of youth, and the uncertainties of carving an identity as a writer. The second volume, The Cost of Living, speaks to the challenges of middle age as a writer and a woman - motherhood, separation, bereavement.