Deborah Levy

things-i-dont-want-to-know

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The Position of Spoons

August Blue

Vintage Classics French Series

The Inseparables

30 Reflections from Exploring on Foot

Writers on Walks: A BBC Radio 3 Collection

Living Autobiography 3

Real Estate

The Man Who Saw Everything

Swallowing Geography

Living Autobiography 2

The Cost of Living

The Lady and the Little Fox Fur

Swimming Home

Hot Milk

The Unloved

Beautiful Mutants

Beautiful Mutants and Swallowing Geography

Early Levy

Things I Don't Want to Know

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

An up-to-date version of 'A Room of One's Own' . . .  I suspect it will be quoted for many years to come

Superb sharpness and originality of imagination. It is feminist and political while being an inspiring work of writing . . . She writes on the high wire, unfalteringly

Levy's strength is her originality of thought and expression

An exciting writer, sharp and shocking as the knives her characters wield

One of the few contemporary British writers comfortable on a world stage

A writer whose anger and confusion in the face of the world transform into poetic flights of fancy . . . which always feel marvellously right

Living Autobiography 1

'Things I Don't Want to Know' is a response to George Orwell from one of our most vital contemporary writers. Taking Orwell's famous list of motives for writing as the jumping-off point for a sequence of thrilling reflections on the writing life, this is a perfect companion both to Orwell's essay and to Levy's own oeuvre. 
 
'In her powerful rejoinder to Orwell, Deborah Levy responds to his proposed motives for writing -- 'sheer egoism', 'aesthetic enthusiasm', 'historical impulse' and 'political purpose' -- with illuminating moments of autobiography. A vivid, striking account of a writer's life, which feminises and personalises Orwell's blunt assertions' Spectator

The first in Deborah Levy's essential three-part 'Living Autobiography' on writing and womanhood. 
 
'Unmissable. Like chancing upon an oasis, you want to drink it slowly . . . Subtle, unpredictable, surprising' Guardian 
_________________________________ 
 
 Taking George Orwell's famous essay, 'Why I Write', as a jumping-off point, Deborah Levy offers her own indispensable reflections of the writing life. With wit, clarity and calm brilliance, she considers how the writer must stake claim to that contested territory as a young woman and shape it to her need. 
 
Things I Don't Want to Know is a work of dazzling insight and deep psychological succour, from one of our most vital contemporary writers. 
 
The final two instalments in Deborah Levy's 'Living Autobiography', The Cost of Living and Real Estate, are available now. 
 _________________________________ 
 
 
'Superb sharpness and originality of imagination. An inspiring work of writing' Marina Warner 
 
'An exciting writer, sharp and shocking as the knives her characters wield' Sunday Times 
 
'A writer whose anger and confusion in the face of the world transform into poetic flights of fancy . . . which always feel marvellously right' Independent

Deborah Levy is the author of several novels including August Blue, Hot Milk and Swimming Home, alongside a formally innovative, critically acclaimed 'living autobiography' trilogy: Things I Don't Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate. She has been shortlisted twice each for the Goldsmiths Prize and Booker Prize and won the Prix Femina Etranger. She has also written for The Royal Shakespeare Company and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Things I Don't Want to Know

Living Autobiography 1

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An up-to-date version of 'A Room of One's Own' . . . I suspect it will be quoted for many years to come

Superb sharpness and originality of imagination. It is feminist and political while being an inspiring work of writing . . . She writes on the high wire, unfalteringly

Levy's strength is her originality of thought and expression

An exciting writer, sharp and shocking as the knives her characters wield

One of the few contemporary British writers comfortable on a world stage

A writer whose anger and confusion in the face of the world transform into poetic flights of fancy . . . which always feel marvellously right

About Deborah Levy

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