Andrea Levy Biography

Andrea Levy was an English author best remembered for penning down the 2004 novel ‘Small Island’ and the 2010 novel ‘The Long Song’. Both novels garnered her various recognitions and honors, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and Commonwealth Writers Prize. As a daughter of Jamaican parents, she usually explored topics related to British Jamaicans in her works. Born in Archway, London, Levy was raised in a typical working-class family. While growing up on a council estate in north London, she studied at Highbury Hill Grammar School and later attended Middlesex Polytechnic where she studied textile design and weaving. Following her graduation, Levy started her career as a costume assistant. She did not have a reading habit until the age of 23; she subsequently began to read and started writing in her mid-30s. Her first novel, ‘Every Light in the House Burnin', was published in 1994 and attracted favorable reviews. Levy continued writing until her death from metastatic breast cancer in 2019.