Deborah Levy

Who was Gertrude Stein? Avant-garde American poet and art collector who made her home in Paris, godmother of modernism, queer icon, friend to Picasso and Hemingway, self-declared genius - a writer who has baffled readers and critics for a century. And why does she matter? The narrator of Deborah Levy's latest, dazzling fiction has gone to Paris to find out. There she meets Eva with the blinding gaze, an artist in a long-distance marriage, and Fanny, a sexually adventurous financier; together they cook, walk, read and argue late into the nights. As Paris sweeps her along in its ceaseless flow, she thinks - about what we have to lose to become modern, navigating anxiety, living with uncertainty, angry fathers, making a new life in another country, art and language - how all these things looked to Gertrude Stein in the early days of the twentieth century, and how they look to her and her friends in the early twenty-first. This is a book about how we put ourselves together- an exhilarating, witty, cosmopolitan meditation on the pleasures and challenges of friendship, desire and living with other people. But it is also crashes through genre to create an inspired portrait of Stein herself: a writer who experimented fearlessly with a new way of living and who wrestled herself free from the nineteenth century to invent a brand-new way of looking at the world.

A harmincas éveiben járó zongoraművész, Elsa M. Anderson a karrierje csúcsán lesétál a színpadról, miután Rahmanyinov egyik darabja helyett a saját kompozícióját kezdte el játszani. A botrány után Athénba utazik, hogy egy gazdag család gyermekét tanítsa, és a bolhapiacon megpillant egy nőt, aki nyugtalanítóan ismerősnek tűnik számára. Ettől a pillanattól kezdve bárhol is jár Európában, a titokzatos hasonmás mindenütt felbukkan. Elsát gyerekkorában Arthur, a legendás zongoratanár fogadta örökbe, aki most haldoklik, ezért a nő Szardíniára repül, hogy elbúcsúzzon tőle. A szigeten feltárul az igazság a múltjáról, amely elől egész életében menekült. Az Augusztusi kékálomszerű utazás az identitás nyomában. Lírai, melankolikus regény lázadásról, egy csodagyerek metamorfózisáról és a saját hangunk megtalálásáról.

A harmincas éveiben járó zongoraművész, Elsa M. Anderson a karrierje csúcsán lesétál a színpadról, miután Rahmanyinov egyik darabja helyett a saját kompozícióját kezdte el játszani. A botrány után Athénba utazik, hogy egy gazdag család gyermekét tanítsa, és a bolhapiacon megpillant egy nőt, aki nyugtalanítóan ismerősnek tűnik számára. Ettől a pillanattól kezdve bárhol is jár Európában, a titokzatos hasonmás mindenütt felbukkan.Elsát gyerekkorában Arthur, a legendás zongoratanár fogadta örökbe, aki most haldoklik, ezért a nő Szardíniára repül, hogy elbúcsúzzon tőle. A szigeten feltárul az igazság a múltjáról, amely elől egész életében menekült. Az Augusztusi kékálomszerű utazás az identitás nyomában. Lírai, melankolikus regény lázadásról, egy csodagyerek metamorfózisáról és a saját hangunk megtalálásáról. 

From twice Booker-shortlisted author Deborah Levy, a moving and revelatory collection exploring the muses that have shaped her life and work as a writer In 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'.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, TIME MAGAZINE The mesmerising new novel from the twice Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home At 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.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2019'An ice-cold skewering of patriarchy, humanity and the darkness of the 20th century Europe' The Times'It's like this, Saul Adler.''No, it's like this, Jennifer Moreau.'In 1988, Saul Adler is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. Apparently fine, he gets up and poses for a photograph taken by his girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. He carries this photo with him to East Berlin: a fragment of the present, an anchor to the West. But in the GDR he finds himself troubled by time - stalked by the spectres of history, slipping in and out of a future that does not yet exist. Until, in 2016, Saul attempts to cross the Abbey Road again... 'A time-bending, location-hopping tale of love, truth and the power of seeing. Thoroughly gripping' Sunday Telegraph'Writing so beautiful it stops the reader on the page' Independent'Levy splices time in artfully believable, mesmerizing strokes' Lambda Literary'Skewering totalitarianism - from the state, to the family, to the strictures of the male gaze - Levy explodes conventional narrative to explore the individual's place and culpability within history' Guardian'An utterly beguiling fever dream' Daily Telegraph

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.

'An exciting writer, sharp and shocking as the knives her characters wield' Sunday Times 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. 'Levy is a brilliant writer' Telegraph 'Levy's strength is her originality of thought and expression' Jeanette Winterson

Mladá antropologička Sofia sa pokúša vyriešiť záhadu nevysvetliteľnej dlhej choroby svojej matky Rose. Matkine ustavičné ponosy ju frustrujú, no zjavne jej vyhovuje, že sa nemusí osamostatniť a riešiť svoj neuspokojivý život dospelej ženy. Spolu s matkou odcestujú na horúce vyprahnuté pobrežie Španielska, aby tam spolu navštívili slávneho špecialistu, ktorý je ich poslednou nádejou, a dúfajú, že im pomôže vyriešiť záhadnú paralýzu Rosiných nôh. Komu sa kniha môže páčiť: Milovníkom nevšedných románov, ktoré siahajú do hĺbky duše.

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 - as an artist, a woman, a mother or daughter? And what is the price of that freedom? In this dazzling 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 - she is characteristically eloquent on the social expectations and surreal realities of daily life. And expanding far beyond these bounds, she describes a uniquely frank, wise and thrilling manifesto for female experience: embracing the exhilarating terror of freedom, seeking to understand what that freedom could mean and how it might feel.

Mladá antropologička Sofia sa pokúša vyriešiť záhadu nevysvetliteľnej dlhej choroby svojej matky Rose. Matkine ustavičné ponosy ju frustrujú, no zjavne jej vyhovuje, že sa nemusí osamostatniť a riešiť svoj neuspokojivý život dospelej ženy. Spolu s matkou odcestujú na horúce vyprahnuté pobrežie Španielska, aby tam spolu navštívili slávneho špecialistu, ktorý je ich poslednou nádejou, a dúfajú, že im pomôže vyriešiť záhadnú paralýzu Rosiných nôh. Deborah Levy je britská spisovateľka a poetka. Jej romány dva razy postúpili do užšieho výberu Bookerovej ceny a literárny kritika ju nazvala „jedným z najvzrušujúcejších hlasov súčasnej britskej prózy“.

The audacious and elegiac second installment in her 'living autobiography' on writing and womanhood, from the twice-Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home 'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor sharp insights' Financial Times Following the acclaimed Things I Don't Want to Know, Deborah Levy returns to the subject of her life in letters. The Cost of Living reveals a writer in radical flux, considering what it means to live with value and meaning and pleasure. This perfectly crafted snapshot of a woman in the process of transformation is as distinctive, wide-ranging and original as Levy's acclaimed novels, an essential read for every Deborah Levy fan. 'Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy is a brilliant writer . . . Each sentence is a small masterpiece of clarity and poise' Telegraph 'This short, sensual, embattled memoir is not only about the painful landmarks in her life - the end of a marriage, the death of a mother - it is about what it is to be alive. I can't think of any other writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman' Observer

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

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2016Plunge into this hypnotic tale of female sexuality and power - from the Man Booker shortlisted author of Swimming HomeTwo 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.

A richly mythic, colour-saturated tale from the Man Booker-shortlisted author of Swimming Home - Deborah Levy explores the violently primal bond between mother and daughter. Today I dropped my laptop on the concrete floor. It was tucked under my arm and slid out of its black rubber sheath, landing screen-side down. The digital page shattered. Apparently there's a man in the next flyblown town who mends computers. He could send off for a new screen, which would take a month to arrive. Will I still be here in a month? My mother is sleeping under a mosquito net in the next room. Soon she will wake up and shout, 'Sofia, get me a glass of water', and I will get her water and it will be the wrong sort of water. And then after a while I will leave her and return to gaze at the shattered starfield of my screen. Two women arrive in a Spanish village - a dreamlike place caught between the desert and the ocean - seeking medical advice and salvation. One of the strangers suffers from a mysterious illness: spontaneous paralysis confines her to a wheelchair, her legs unusable. The other, her daughter Sofia, has spent years playing the reluctant detective in this mystery, struggling to understand her mother's illness. Surrounded by the oppressive desert heat and the mesmerising figures who move through it, Sofia waits while her mother undergoes the strange programme of treatments invented by Dr Gomez. Searching for a cure to a defiant and quite possibly imagined disease, ever more entangled in the seductive, mercurial games of those around her, Sofia finally comes to confront and reconcile the disparate fragments of her identity. Hot Milk is a labyrinth of violent desires, primal impulses, and surreally persuasive internal logic. Examining female rage and sexuality, Deborah Levy's dazzling new novel explores the strange and monstrous nature of motherhood, testing the bonds of parent and child to breaking point.

'Kissing you is like new paint and old pain. It is like coffee and car alarms and a dim stairway and a stain and it's like smoke.' ('Placing a Call') How does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love - or for lack of it? Ten stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explore these delicate, impossible questions. In Vienna, an icy woman seduces a broken man; in London gardens, birds sing in computer start-up sounds; in ad-land, a sleek copywriter becomes a kind of shaman. These are twenty-first century lives dissected with razor-sharp humour and curiosity, stories about what it means to live and love, together and alone.