Interview conducted by Clare O’Dea, journalist and author
Born in South Africa in 1959, Deborah Levy is an author who writes fiction, plays, and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and she is the writer of highly praised books including Swallowing Geography (Random House, 1993) The Unloved (Johathan Cape, 1994), and Beautiful Mutants (Bloomsbury, 2017). Her novel Swimming Home (Bloomsbury, 2012) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Specsavers National Book Awards and 2013 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize. Her short story collection, Black Vodka (Bloomsbury, 2014) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Things I Don’t Want to Know (Notting Hill, 2013) is the title of Levy’s sparkling response to George Orwell’s essay Why I Write, an autobiographical essay on writing, gender politics and philosophy. Her collection of poetry, An Amorous Discourse in The Suburbs of Hell (And Other Stories, 2014) was inspired by William Blake’s vision of angels perched in a tree on Peckham Common. Her Living Autobiography (in French Autobiographie en mouvement, Éditions du sous-sol, 2021) received the prix Femina étranger in 2020. The author draws on her readings, her reflections as a woman, a mother and a writer, to try and understand why she writes, how her work questions the role of women in a society defined by men. Her latest book, not yet published in English, La position de la cuillère et autres bonheurs impertinents (Éd. du sous-sol, 2023), delves into her library, giving keys to understanding her work.