The Long Song: Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

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Levy’s handling of slavery is characteristically authentic, resonant and imaginative. She never sermonises. She doesn’t need to – the events and characters speak loud and clear for themselves… Slavery is a grim subject indeed, but the wonder of Levy’s writing is that she can confront such things and somehow derive deeply life-affirming entertainment from them.’ The Songbook Exhibit Gallery, Library & Archives and offices will be closed for the holidays beginning Thursday, December 22 through Monday, January 2. I really wanted to like Andrea Levy’s The Long Song. The subject matter is interesting—the last years of slavery in Jamaica in the 1820s-30s—and Levy’s outstanding 2004 novel Small Island was one of my favourite British novels of the 2000s.

Long Song: What to Know Before You Watch - PBS The Long Song: What to Know Before You Watch - PBS

The Long Song has an unusual format for a historical novel. Part memoir, part oral history, it is led by July, the narrator, who is detailing an account of her life on a Jamaican plantation, which is then filtered through her son, who is writing her account and experiences on her behalf. It is often non-linear and, at points, Levy deviates with interludes and interruptions, where the two discuss the presentation of the story. What did you think of this format - how did it serve your reading experience and your understanding of July’s experience? Why do you think Levy chose to write in this manner? The Man Booker prize 2010 shortlist". The Guardian. 7 September 2010. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 7 July 2020.Levy was the daughter of mixed race parents who emigrated from the Caribbean to England in the 1960s and the interactions between the immigrant (coloured) and the host (white) cultures are the subject of all her novels. See The Long Song on MASTERPIECE on PBS in three episodes, Sundays, January 31, February 7 and 14, 2021 at a special time – 10pm ET. Watch each episode online in the general streaming window for 14 days, starting the night of the broadcast premiere. After that, enjoy The Long Song, and a selection of other MASTERPIECE shows, when you watch with PBS Passport, an added member benefit.

Long Song: A Novel - Andrea Levy - Google Books The Long Song: A Novel - Andrea Levy - Google Books

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However much we are entertained by July, we never lose sight of her courage, her tenacity, her life-affirming spirit, and through them we see the qualities that all those who survived and eventually thrived in that harsh period must have had in abundance. Levy never fails to get her message through clearly. That she can do so without a hint of didactism or of overwrought sentimentality says much about her ability as a writer of our times and of our sometimes inglorious past. As a child, Caroline Mortimer takes July away from the plantation fields and her mother, Kitty. She ‘adopts’ her, renaming her Marguerite, and using her as a housemaid. How does the relationship between July and Caroline evolve as the novel progresses? Is Kitty’s life now ‘better’ as a housemaid than as a slave working in the fields? I have to start by saying Andrea Levy is one of my favourite authors. Her writing is always so beautiful and I wasn't surprised to learn that The Long Song was.a Man Booker finalist in 2010. mp_sf_list_4_description: See The Long Song on MASTERPIECE on PBS in three episodes, Sundays, January 31, February 7 and 14, 2021 at a special time – 10pm ET. Watch each episode online in the general streaming window for 14 days, starting the night of the broadcast premiere. After that, enjoy The Long Song, and a selection of other MASTERPIECE shows, when you watch with PBS Passport, an added member benefit.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy | Goodreads

Household slaves were better off than the field workers, who are treated with contemptuous brutality. While Levy vividly conveys the horrors of slavery, she lightens the tone as her house slave characters act out complex rivalries and exploit their owners when they can. We have 9 read-alikes for The Long Song, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member. After the book was released, research by a family member proved just how personal The Long Song truly was. “It was all done and then my niece found out a lot about our own family history,” Levy explained. “She found out that my great grandfather was born a slave. His mother was a housekeeper on a plantation called Mesopotamia and her mother was a field slave called Minnie. We found out that my great, great-grandfather was from Gainsborough in Britain, his name was William Ridsguard and he was the attorney on the plantation, and he had a child with his house keeper...that child, Richard Ridsguard was my great grandfather.”

Slavery is a subject that has inspired some magnificent fiction, but I had some misgivings: might it not, in this case, make for over-serious writing, especially for a novelist as comically inclined as Levy? But she dares to write about her subject in an entertaining way without ever trivialising it and The Long Song reads with the sort of ebullient effortlessness that can only be won by hard work. Slavery is a subject that has inspired some magnificent fiction (think of Toni Morrison's Beloved or Valerie Martin's Property), but I had some misgivings: might it not, in this case, make for over-serious writing, especially for a novelist as comically inclined as Levy? But she dares to write about her subject in an entertaining way without ever trivialising it and The Long Song reads with the sort of ebullient effortlessness that can only be won by hard work. Dowell, Ben. "Hayley Atwell, Lenny Henry and Tamara Lawrance cast in new BBC period drama The Long Song". Radio Times. 13 July 2018. Y por fin puedo decir que me he leído uno de mis eternos pendientes de la vida. Conocí este libro al ver en la televisión su versión en miniserie o película larga hará cosa de unos dos o tres años, y si he tardado tanto en leerlo (aunque lo he tenido en la mano muchas veces para comenzarlo) era precisamente porque quería alejarme un poco de la película, esperando que así el libro pudiera sorprenderme más si se me desdibujaba su argumento aunque fuera un poco . Tengo que deciros que la versión cinematográfica es muy fiel al original (De hecho, creo que es la película que he visto nunca que es más fiel al libro del que bebe) y que merece mucho la pena verla. En esta novela conoceremos los últimos años de la esclavitud como práctica legal en la isla de Jamaica (que en el siglo XIX era una colonia inglesa) y lo que aconteció posteriormente tras la emancipación de los esclavos por parte de la corona. Todo esto será narrado por July, quien escribirá su historia siendo ya una anciana a su hijo, un prospero editor. Nacida como esclava en la plantación de Concordia, July será abruptamente apartada del lado de su madre siendo una niña por los caprichos de Caroline Mortimer, una recien llegada a la isla, quien la convertirá en su doncella particular. La historia de July no será un camino de rosas, estará marcada por la lucha por la libertad de sus semejantes, el egoísmo de los blancos, el amor y la pérdida.