Synopses & Reviews
Blending personal history, gender politics, philosophy, and literary theory into a luminescent treatise on writing, love, and loss, Things I Don't Want to Know is Deborah Levys witty response to George Orwells influential essay “Why I Write.” Orwell identified four reasons he was driven to hammer at his typewriter—political purpose, historical impulse, sheer egoism, and aesthetic enthusiasm—and Levys newest work riffs on these same commitments from a female writers perspective.
As she struggles to balance womanhood, motherhood, and her writing career, Levy identifies some of the real-life experiences that have shaped her novels, including her familys emigration from South Africa in the era of apartheid; her teenage years in the UK where she played at being a writer in the company of builders and bus drivers in cheap diners; and her theater-writing days touring Poland in the midst of Eastern Europes economic crisis, where she observed how a soldier tenderly kissed the women in his life goodbye.
Spanning continents (Africa and Europe) and decades (we meet the author at seven, fifteen, and fifty), Things I Don't Want to Know brings the reader into a writer's heart.
Review
“A vivid, striking account of a writers life, which feminises and personalises Orwells blunt assertions.” —The Spectator
“Powerful.” —The New Statesman
“[Levy] is a skilled wordsmith and creates an array of intense emotions and moods in precise, controlled prose.” —The Independent
“While billed as a response to George Orwells essay ‘Why I Write, it is as much an up-to-date version of A Room of Ones Own, and, like the Virginia Woolf essay, I suspect it will be quoted for many years to come.” —The Irish Examiner
Synopsis
To be published simultaneously with Black Vodka, the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted writer's new collection of short stories, a shimmering jewel of a book about writing.
Blending personal history, gender politics, philosophy, and literary theory into a luminescent treatise on writing, love, and loss, Things I Don't Want to Know is Deborah Levy's witty response to George Orwell's influential essay "Why I Write." Orwell identified four reasons he was driven to hammer at his typewriter-political purpose, historical impulse, sheer egoism, and aesthetic enthusiasm-and Levy's newest work riffs on these same commitments from a female writer's perspective.
As she struggles to balance womanhood, motherhood, and her writing career, Levy identifies some of the real-life experiences that have shaped her novels, including her family's emigration from South Africa in the era of apartheid; her teenage years in the UK where she played at being a writer in the company of builders and bus drivers in cheap diners; and her theater-writing days touring Poland in the midst of Eastern Europe's economic crisis, where she observed how a soldier tenderly kissed the women in his life goodbye.
Spanning continents (Africa and Europe) and decades (we meet the author at seven, fifteen, and fifty), Things I Don't Want to Know brings the reader into a writer's heart.
Synopsis
To be published simultaneously with Black Vodka, the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted writers new collection of short stories, a shimmering jewel of a book about writing.
About the Author
Deborah Levy writes fiction, plays, and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company and widely broadcast on the BBC, including her dramatizations of two of Freuds most iconic case histories, Dora and The Wolfman. The author of highly praised novels including the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Swimming Home, Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography, and Billy and Girl, she lives in London.