Deborah Levy

01 July 1959

South-African-born DL began writing experimental fiction, plays, and poetry during the 1980s. She also worked in journalism, performance art and mixed media. By 2021 she had published six novels, three volumes of stories, and three volumes of memoirs. Her work is deeply marked by experience of displacement and exile; many of her English characters come from elsewhere.

Milestones

Earlier 1959

DL was born in South Africa. She has an older half-brother, a brother who is four years younger than she is, and a much younger sister born after the family migrated to Britain.

Levy, Deborah. Things I Don’t Want to Know. On Writing. Bloomsbury.

Levy, Norman. The Final Prize. My Life in the Anti-apartheid Struggle. South African History Online.

312, 377, 382

“Norman Levy”. SAHO South African History Online.

October 2011

After an interval of fourteen years since her previous novel, DL 's Swimming Home garnered many rejections before being published by subscription through And Other Stories

And Other Stories Publishing. http://www.andotherstories.org/.

Crown, Sarah. “Deborah Levy: <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘a’>Space Oddity</span> seemed to be about leaving the land I was born in. Being unable to return. It can still make me cry”. theguardian.com.

Biography

Birth and Background