Deborah Levy

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERBOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, TIME MAGAZINE'Levy's lyrical, pitch-perfect prose is an exploration of our reasons for living, the forces that drive us and the inner music that controls the rhythms of our dance through life and love' IndependentThe mesmerising new novel from the twice Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming HomeAt the height of her career, concert pianist Elsa M. Anderson - former child prodigy, now in her thirties - walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance.Now she is in Athens, watching as another young woman, a stranger but uncannily familiar - almost her double - purchases a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history.So begins a journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who bought the dancing horses.A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis, August Blue uncovers the ways in which we seek to lose an old story, find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew.'Deborah Levy writes like a dream and I mean that quite literally' Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman'A virtuosic novel of identity and breakdown . . . [it] flickers constantly between comedy and darkness. You know you'll read August Blue again' M John Harrison, GuardianSunday Times bestseller, May 2023

Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, Vulture, The Guardian, BBC, The Week, and Publisher's Weekly A new novel from the Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy, the celebrated author of The Man Who Saw Everything and The Cost of Living. At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson--former child prodigy, now in her thirties--walks off the stage in Vienna, midperformance. Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double. A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis, Deborah Levy's August Blue uncovers the ways in which we attempt to revise our oldest stories and make ourselves anew.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERBOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, TIME MAGAZINEThe mesmerising new novel from the twice Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming HomeAt the height of her career, concert pianist Elsa M. Anderson - former child prodigy, now in her thirties - walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance.Now she is in Athens, watching as another young woman, a stranger but uncannily familiar - almost her double - purchases a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history.So begins a journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who bought the dancing horses.A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis, August Blue uncovers the ways in which we seek to lose an old story, find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew.'A writer at the peak of her talents' Lisa Appignanesi'There's no one touching the brilliance of Deborah Levy's prose today' Lee Rourke'Levy's strength is her originality of thought and expression' Jeanette Winterson

From twice Booker-shortlisted author Deborah Levy, a moving and revelatory collection exploring the muses that have shaped her life and work as a writerIn The Position of Spoons, Deborah Levy traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her – including a letter to her dying mother and to an absent friend. This volume illuminates and celebrates a rich and varied intellectual inheritance – and reflects on how it has enriched the author’s own work. Taking in questions of mortality, language, gender, place, consumerism and everyday living, the acclaimed novelist invites her reader behind the curtain of a creative life, ‘in which the position of the spoon is always changing’.‘Levy’s writing is dreamy but diamond-sharp, prismatic, droll, [and] devastating . . . Each sentence precisely pins down a feeling’ Los Angeles Review of Books‘Writing is self-excavation, a painful digging into the archaeology of our own experience. Levy is good on the prices we find ourselves paying: for art, for love, for fitting in . . . [She] plunges into the depths, taking us with her’ Guardian

From one of the great thinkers and writers of our time, comes the unmissable final instalment in Deborah Levy's critically acclaimed 'Living Autobiography'.'A beautifully crafted and thought-provoking snapshot of a life' The Evening Standard_________________________________'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.'Following the critical acclaim of Things I Don't Want to Know and 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._________________________________'Real Estate is a book to dive into. Come on in, the water's lovely' The Daily Telegraph'Her reflections on domesticity, freedom and romance are so beautiful, I found myself underlining multiple sentences a page. Wry, warm and uplifting, it's a book I'll return to again and again' Stylist'[Levy's living autobiography series is] a glittering triple echo of books that are as much philosophical discourse as a manifesto for living and writing' Financial Times

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2016 Plunge into this hypnotic tale of female sexuality and power - from the Man Booker shortlisted author of Swimming Home Two women arrive in a village on the Spanish coast. Rose is suffering from a strange illness andher doctors are mystified. Her daughter Sofia has brought her here to find a cure with the infamous and controversial Dr Gomez - a man of questionable methods and motives. Intoxicated by thick heat and the seductive people who move through it, both women begin to see their lives clearly for the first time in years. Through the opposing figures of mother and daughter, Deborah Levy explores the strange and monstrous nature of womanhood. Dreamlike and utterly compulsive, Hot Milk is a delirious fairy tale of feminine potency, a story both modern and timeless.

Early Levy comprises two pioneering early works by Man Booker-shortlisted writer Deborah Levy.BEAUTIFUL MUTANTS 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.& SWALLOWING GEOGRAPHY 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.'She storms through the back door, refusing to be weighed down with rationalist and aesthetic baggage . . . [This] is a world on the brink of destruction but it's going down with a barnyard laugh and an explosive extravagance of imagination' Blitz'It throbs its way into the imagination like the unguided missile it decries' Observer on Beautiful MutantsDeborah Levy writes fiction, plays and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and she is the author of numerous highly praised books including Things I Don't Want to Know and The Unloved, both of which are now published by Penguin. Her novel Swimming Home was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, 2012 Specsavers National Book Awards (UK Author of the Year) and 2013 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize.

A feast of observations about everything from the particular beauty of lemons on a table, to the allure of Colette, to the streets of Paris, by the inimitable Deborah Levy. Deborah Levy's vital literary voice speaks about many things. On footwear: "It has always been very clear to me that people who wear shoes without socks are destined to become my friends and lovers." On public parks: "A civic garden square gentles the pace of the city that surrounds it, holding a thought before it scrambles." On Elizabeth Hardwick: "She understands what is at stake in literature." On the conclusion of a marriage: "It doesn't take an alien to tell us that when love dies we have to find another way of being alive." Levy traces and measures her life against the backdrop of different literary imaginations; each page is a beautiful, questioning composition of the self. The Position of Spoons is full of wisdom and astonishments and brings us into intimate conversation with one of our most insightful, intellectually curious writers.

Simon Moretti is known for his enigmatic exhibition works, presenting displays that engage with questions of agency, temporality, automatism, desire and masculinity. Incorporating appropriated images and archives as well as curatorial and publishing projects, often made in collaboration with other artists, his work addresses the role of ‘curating as practice’. Presented as a non-chronological visual essay, this publication surveys 10 years of collage works by Moretti. It includes text contributions from writer Craig Burnett, curator and art historian Yuval Etgar, novelists Deborah Levy and Chloe Aridjis, and a conversation with Andrew Durbin, editor-in-chief of frieze magazine.

In 1988 Saul Adler (a narcissistic, young historian) is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. He is apparently fine; he gets up and goes to see his art student girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. They have sex then break up, but not before she has photographed Saul crossing the same Abbey Road.Saul leaves to study in communist East Berlin, two months before the Wall comes down. There he will encounter - significantly - both his assigned translator and his translator's sister, who swears she has seen a jaguar prowling the city. He will fall in love and brood upon his difficult, authoritarian father. And he will befriend a hippy, Rainer, who may or may not be a Stasi agent, but will certainly return to haunt him in middle age.Slipping slyly between time zones and leaving a spiralling trail, Deborah Levy's electrifying The Man Who Saw Everything examines what we see and what we fail to see, the grave crime of carelessness, the weight of history and our ruinous attempts to shrug it off.

A stunning early novel by the twice Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home, Deborah Levy. 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._________________________________'An exciting writer, sharp and shocking as the knives her characters wield' Sunday Times 'Levy is a brilliant writer' Telegraph 'Levy's strength is her originality of thought and expression' Jeanette Winterson

From the twice-Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home : Dazzling, essential, entirely unlike anything else -- a memoir on modern womanhood, rejecting oppressive social expectations and turning instead towards a thrilling, transformative freedom What does it mean to be free? What kind of women are we allowed to become? What would it feel like to live with truth, with integrity, with joy? And if we could find those things, would we be brave enough to claim them? In this astonishing memoir, Deborah Levy confronts the essential questions of modern womanhood with humour, pragmatism, and profoundly resonant wisdom. Reflecting on the period when she wrote the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Hot Milk - when her mother was dying, her daughters were leaving home, her marriage was coming to an end - The Cost of Living is characteristically eloquent on mothers and daughters, social expectations and surreal realities, and the fraught, necessary creative process of the writer. Expanding out from these ideas, it becomes a manifesto for female experience, as the author embraces the exhilarating terror of freedom, seeking to understand what that freedom could mean and how it might feel. Praise for Deborah Levy's Hot Milk: 'Mythic, dreamlike... A literary triumph' Financial Times Books of the Year 'A beautifully rich, vividly atmospheric and psychologically complex exploration of mother-daughter interdependency. Every woman should read it' Bernardine Evaristo, author of Mr Loverman and the forthcoming Girl, Woman, Other 'A powerful novel about a daughter's struggle to define herself, Levy draws attention to the mythic in all of us [and] shows us the exquisite difficulty of realising that, in a world of myths, we have the freedom to write our own parts' Spectator

Unmissable. Like chancing upon an oasis, you want to drink it slowly... Subtle, unpredictable, surprising' Guardian.Things I Don't Want to Know is the first in Deborah Levy's essential three-part 'Living Autobiography' on writing and womanhood.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 as a young woman and shape it to her need. Things I Don't Want to Know is a work of dazzling insight and deep psychological succour, from one of our most vital contemporary writers.'Superb sharpness and originality of imagination. An inspiring work of writing' Marina Warner.

Here, 14 authors have been invited to work with key scientists to explore, through short fiction, various aspects of sleep research: from the possibilities of ‘sleep engineering’ and ‘overnight therapies’, to future-tech ways of harnessing sleep’s problem-solving powers, to the challenges posed by our increasingly 24-hour lifestyles.

A hypnotising summer novel from the twice Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home_________________________________ A group of hedonistic West European tourists gather to celebrate Christmas in a remote French chateau. Then an Englishwoman is brutally murdered, and the sad, eerie child Tatiana declares she knows who did it. The subsequent inquiry into the death proves to be more of an investigation into the nature of love, insatiable rage and sadistic desire. The Unloved offers a bold and revealing look at some of the events that shaped European and African history, and the perils of a future founded on concealed truth. _________________________________'Brave and brilliant, measured and lyrical' Independent'Levy's prose throbs its way into the imagination' Observer 'Startling, compelling, cool' The Times 'Levy's sense of dramatic form is unerring, and her precise, dispassionate prose effortlessly summons people and landscapes' New Yorker

From the author of Swimming Home, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize ____________________'A postmodern tragicomedy of childhood, original as always' - Michele Roberts, Independent on Sunday Books of the Year'It's profoundly serious, combining massive abstractions - love, desire, the universality of pain - with the diminutive in a way that's often witty, sometimes lyrical and, amazingly, very rarely trivialising' - Guardian'Sharp, savage and spry, Levy shows us what kinship is really about in this strange, touching and totally original novel' - Darian Leader____________________In the Freezerworld toy section, all the girl princess dolls stand proud in their tiny gold shoes. Big hair and luned-out stares. Girl says, listen, one day I will have a kingdom too.Billy and his sister, Girl, are clever, stylish and damaged. They live somewhere in England and are searching for their missing mother. They think she might be lurking in Freezerworld, a mega superstore on the edge of a motorway. Yet it is a young woman stocking the shelves in this 'frozen world' who attracts their attention. Girl, who wants a proper name, feels a special bond with her as she gazes at the name tag on her uniform. Will she lead them to their mother? Billy & Girl is both a joyful contemporary fairy tale and a hard hitting critique of the beginning of frantic consumerism in the 1990s.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize "Readers will have to resist the temptation to hurry up in order to find out what happens . . . Our reward is the enjoyable, if unsettling, experience of being pitched into the deep waters of Levy's wry, accomplished novel." - Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review As he arrives with his family at the villa in the hills above Nice, France, Joe sees a body in the swimming pool. But the girl is very much alive. She is Kitty Finch: a self-proclaimed botanist with green-painted fingernails, walking naked out of the water and into the heart of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them all? And why does Joe's enigmatic wife allow her to remain? A subversively brilliant study of love, Swimming Home reveals how the most devastating secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.