Headline Review
Tinder Press
Tinder Press
A passionate and perceptive story full of the pain and the humour of growing up.
NEVER FAR FROM NOWHERE is the story of two sisters, Olive and Vivien, born in London to Jamaican parents and brought up on a council estate. They go to the same grammar school, but while Vivien s life becomes a chaotic mix of friendships, youth clubs, skinhead violence, A-levels, discos and college, Olive, three years older and a skin shade darker, has a very different tale to tell...
Painfully perceptive and passionate, NEVER FAR FROM NOWHERE hits a raw nerve with its powerful concoction of poignancy and humour - Pride
Passionate and angry - TLS
In this lively, crisp, raw voice, young black Londoners may have found their Roddy Doyle - Independent on Sunday
Levy's raw sense of realism and depth of feeling infuses every line - Elle
An inspired coming-of-age novel with a mature grasp of generational conflict, pressure to conform, and the fraught process of discovering one's identity, NEVER FAR FROM NOWHERE should be read by anyone who is growing up in Britain today - Scotsman
The story is well told, does not dodge complexity and rings true - The Times
Andrea Levy was born in England to Jamaican parents who came to Britain in 1948. She has lived all her life in London. After attending writing workshops when she was in her mid-thirties, Levy began to write the novels that she, as a young woman, had always wanted to read entertaining novels that reflect the experiences of black Britons, which look closely and perceptively at Britain and its changing population and at the intimacies that bind British history with that of the Caribbean.
She has written four previous novels, has been a judge for the Orange Prize for Fiction, Orange Futures and the Saga Prize, and has been a recipient of an Arts Council Award. Her second novel, NEVER FAR FROM NOWHERE, was long listed for the Orange Prize, and her most recent novel, SMALL ISLAND, won the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction: Best of the Best, the Whitbread Novel Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. It has now been adapted into a major BBC TV drama.