Andrea Levy: The Long Song
The guile and adaptability of enslaved people
MBP: Congratulations on The Long Song being longlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize. This is the first time you've been nominated for this prize - were you happy with the news?
AL: What author wouldn't be happy to have their work longlisted for the Man Booker? It's an enormous honour. So yes, you could say that I was happy with the news. But absolutely thrilled, would be closer to the truth.
MBP: Small Island was an enormous success - winning the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction Best of the Best, the Whitbread Novel Award and Best Book Award, and the Commonwealth Writer's Prize. Was it difficult to write following that success?
AL: Before I finished Small Island I already knew what my next novel would be. So in that sense it wasn't difficult to get writing again. But with the novel's success I was acutely aware that I had suddenly got a much larger audience. With my earlier novels it felt like I was whispering to one person in a darkened room. But with Small Island, suddenly the lights came on and a whole roomful of people were listening to me. That's quite a responsibility.
MBP: The Long Song is told by a slave girl born on a Jamaican sugar plantation in the nineteenth century, during and after the last years of slavery. Did you immerse yourself in this world in researching the novel, and how difficult was it sometimes reading that material - as a child of the Windrush?
AL: I think it is difficult for anyone to immerse themselves in the strange world of industrial slavery that Britain created in the Caribbean. But for The Long Song I had to do it. My heart did sink when I came upon yet another tract in defence of slavery that I felt I needed to read. But my aim with the book was to try to uncover the day-to-day lives and humanity of the people that were living through that time. Strangely, that was an uplifting experience. I was amazed at the resourcefulness, guile and adaptability that enslaved people found to survive and prosper within their circumstances. As a person of Jamaican heritage I am very proud of that.
MBP: The slave trade in the Caribbean went on for 300 years and for anybody of Caribbean heritage it can be impossible to trace back their history when you hit this period. Do you know a lot about your own family history during this period?
AL: I'm afraid not. I don't even know much about my grandparents with any certainty. What I do know is that, like many people from the Caribbean, my heritage is a very mixed one. But actual records have been hard to come by.
MBP: How did you manage to weave comedy into a story which depicts such horrific and cruel times?
AL: I think the main point here is that The Long Song is not a book about slavery. It's a book about a person who happens to be living her life within a slave society. That person, July, has a personality, and her own sense of humour. I believe for any of us, no matter how brutal and bleak our lives may be, there is always some humour. It's part of the human condition. I was trying to imagine real people, and real lives from a Caribbean slave society whose texture is largely lost to us. To leave out the humour, well it just wouldn't have seemed real.
MBP: What next for Andrea Levy? Will we have to wait six years for the next novel?
AL: I'm not a fast worker, it's true. I like to take my time as I really enjoy writing novels. But I do have an idea that I'm very excited about, and that's the first important step.
