Small Island

'It's a magnificent achievement - and - the best compliment one novelist can give another, made me jealous. Congratulations.'
Linda Grant

'A work of great imaginative power which ranks alongside Sam Selvon's The Lonely Londoners, George Lamming's The Emigrants, and Caryl Phillips' The Final Passage in dealing with the experience of migration. I hope that this novel will get the critical attention it deserves'
Linton Kwesi Johnson

'I enjoyed Small Island enormously. A wonderful insight into a little understood period'
Joan Bakewell

'I loved your novel and hope it does as well as it deserves to. You are right to be proud of it'
Margaret Forster

‘Small Island is a great read, delivering the sort of pleasure which has been the stock-in-trade of a long line of English novelists. It’s honest, skilful, thoughtful and important. This is Andrea Levy’s big book.’
The Guardian

‘It’s an engrossing read – slyly funny, passionately angry and wholly involving.’
The Daily Mail

‘Small Island is never less than finely-written, delicately and often comically observed, and impressively rich in detail and little nuggets of stories.’
The Evening Standard

‘Andrea Levy has written one of those rare fictions that tells you things you didn’t know but feel you should have known.’
The Sunday Herald, Scotland

‘Andrea Levy gives us a new urgent take on our past.’
Vogue

‘Levy has a superb ear for dialogue that captures the nuances and quirks of speech and achieves the remarkable feat of both distilling and bringing into sharp relief the weighty themes of race, war, colonialism, migration and love.’
The New Zealand Herald

‘Small Island is a triumph of poise, organisation and deep, deep character - the sort of work that can only be achieved by an experienced novelist, comfortable with her powers and confident in her technique. Ugliness and struggle, humour and forbearance, this is the myriad-voiced sound of a nation in transformation.’
The Age, Australia

Fruit of the Lemon

'Bright and inventive, brought alive by the loving and humorous creation of Faith's colourful extended family, and its extraordinary history'
Independent

'Levy as a gift for voices (a north London working class man or a drunken voodoo-loving auntie all come to life when they speak)...a thoughtful comment of racism and the importance of knowing where you are from'
The Sunday Times

'Andrea Levy's third novel is easily her most powerful…from the first page you're caught up'
Elle

'There is great skill in the way she presents characters and dialogue; she has powers of observation and an ear for language that makes her books a pleasure to read. Characters come firmly before politics - her agenda, while clear, arises naturally out of personality and incident. While unflinchingly unsentimental, her writing is leavened with humour and warmth... entertaining and revelatory'
TLS (Times Literary Supplement)

'I greatly enjoyed it... I liked the combination of sharp observation and witty asides... it raced along, always entertaining but more than that - the underlying bewilderment and sometimes distress made it something else'
Margaret Foster

'Immensely readable, this book is a book for anyone who has ever wondered a wandered. A must for all'
New Nation

'Reinforces Levy's reputation as an astute observer of modern British life. At a time when the question of race has never been higher on the political agenda, Levy's authoritative depiction of the lives of her generation assumes a wider significance...these fine fictional despatches are a valuable contribution to the on-going national debate'
Financial Times

'Exceptional...a beautifully rendered family history that had the power to make me laugh out loud one minute and then make my eyes well up the next. This book will surely gain her recognition as one the UK's biggest talents. Her eye for detail, her humanity and her compassion make this book and pleasure to recommend'
Peter Longcake, Bookseller

'(A) heart-warming and entertaining account of a lively and colourful family history'
Good Book Guide

'An English take on eh kind of picaresque feminist narratives of American writers such as Alice Walker. Andrea Levy... is perfectly able to hold her own in such company…By turns gritty, moving and humorous'
Publishing News

'Levy is no polemicist; she doesn't need to be. She describes the different societies of England and Jamaica with equal measures of affection and criticism, resisting the temptation to put them in some sort of opposition to each other...She has understood that to move forwards you have to know where you've come from'
Literary Review

'(Levy is) an ironic comedian whose subtle, intelligent novel steers well clear of whimsy. Funny and moving'
The Guardian

'Always refreshingly undogmatic...(readers) will recognise the truthfulness of the world which Andrea Levy describes'
Sunday Telegraph

Never far from Nowhere

'Never far from nowhere makes a splendid second offering from Andrea Levy which more that fulfils the early promise of her debut novel, Every light in the house burnin.... An inspired coming-of-age novel with a mature grasp of generational conflict, pressure to conform, and the fraught process of discovering one's identity, Never far from nowhere should be read by anyone growing up in Britain today'
Scotsman

'Never far from nowhere is as much about the painful, messy reality of family life - too much envy, too little love - as it is about race and identity. In this lively, crisp, raw voice, young black Londoners may have found their Roddy Doyle'
Independent on Sunday

'The mark of Levy's writing is her open-mindedness, her powers of observation and a sort of constructive optimism...Fresh and original'
Glasgow Herald

'A funny poignant insight into teenage life in the early 70s...Never far from nowhere will haunt you'
Birmingham Post

'The story is well told, does not dodge complexity and rings true as an account of the fear and confusion felt by first generation black English people twenty years ago. Above all Andrea Levy succeeds in showing how people respond to an identity imposed on them by others'
The Times

'Painfully perceptive and passionate, Never far from nowhere hits a raw nerve with its powerful concoction of poignancy and humour'
Pride

Passionate and angry
TLS

'Levy's raw sense of realism and depth of feeling infuses every line
Elle