This month we look at the work of Deborah Levy…
North Books’ alternative book club edges away from the usual convention of only inviting readers to discuss a single book (though this can happen from time to time) to opening up our evenings to a more general celebration of our shared love of storytelling and the people behind the words on the page.
Thoughts in the pot so far include asking readers to choose any work from a given writer to encourage a wider discussion of the author’s creativity and output. We are also interested in dedicated genre events as well as putting poets, journalists, songwriters and historians in the mix. Fiction, non-fiction and everything in between.
It’s a book club but it’s an evolving one. It will be one thing one month and something else the next time we meet – always, though, it will belong to the group and it will be shaped by you. The only common denominator will be words – and a conversation about them.
JOIN US
Participation is free if the book is purchased in advance from North Books at a 10% discount. Otherwise it is £5 on the night. To join the group, please email Jules on jules@northbooks.co.uk. You are welcome to come along to the first session for free to see if it’s your cup of tea.
THE WORK
A selection of the Deborah Levy title in the shop.
On our first evening of 2025, Wednesday 12 February, let's talk about the work of Deborah Levy.
Playwright, novelist and poet Deborah Levy (Fellow Royal Society of Literature) was born in 1959 in South Africa. She moved to Britain with her family and studied theatre at Dartington College of Arts. She was a Creative Arts Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, between 1989 and 1991.
She is a regular contributor of articles and reviews to newspapers and magazines including The Independent, The Guardian and the New Statesman. Formerly director and writer for MANACT Theatre Company, Cardiff, Deborah Levy's plays include Pax (1984); Heresies:Eva and Moses (1985), written for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Clam (1985); The B File (1993); and Honey Baby (1995). She is also the author of a libretto adapted from Federico Garcia Lorca's play Blood Wedding. A collection of her plays, Plays: 1 was published in 2000.
She is also the author of three collections of short stories: Ophelia and the Great Idea (1989); Pillow Talk in Europe And Other Places (2004); and Black Vodka (2013). The latter was shortlisted for the International Frank O’Connor Award.
An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell, a collection of poems, was published in 1990, and she wrote the screenplay for a short film Suburban Psycho, televised by the BBC in 1998. Levy also adapted Carol Shield's novel, Unless, and Chance Acquaintances by Colette, for BBC Radio 4.
Deborah Levy is also the author of seven novels: Beautiful Mutants (1989); Swallowing Geography (1993); The Unloved (1994); Diary of a Steak (1997); Billy & Girl (1999); Swimming Home (2011); and Hot Milk (2016). She has been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize, in 2012 and 2016.
Levy’s autobiographical essay on writing, Things I Don't Want to Know, a response to the essay of the same title by George Orwell, was published by Notting Hill Editions in 2013 and in paperback by Penguin in 2014. She has more recently written a sequel, The Cost of Living (2018).