Small Island - Softcover

'Every scene is rich in implication, entrancing and disturbing at the same time; the literary equivalent of a switch-back ride' The Sunday Times, 29/2/04 (The Sunday Times)

'[A] moving, funny, honest novel' Elle 13/2/04 (Elle)

'What makes Levy's writing so appealing is her even-handedness. All her characters can be weak, hopeless, brave, good, bad - whatever their colour. The writing is rigorous and the bittersweet ending, with its unexpected twist, touching... People can retain great dignity, however small their island' Independent on Sunday, 25/1/04 (Independent on Sunday)

'A bevy of luminaries have garlanded Andrea Levy's fourth novel with advance praise - and it's no surprise. Using elements of her own family background, Levy has vividly animated London in the immediate aftermath of World War II... She weaves a wonderfully detailed and vibrant story' Red magazine, February 2004 issue (Red magazine, February 2004 issue)

'I enjoyed SMALL ISLAND enormously and wish it every success. It conjures up so vividly the era of the 1940's and expresses so vividly through the lives of its four protagonists the conflicts and racist attitudes that existed at that time. A wonderful insight into a little understood period' Joan Bakewell (Joan Bakewell)

'Small Island is never less than finely-written, delicately and often comically observed, and impressively rich in detail and little nuggets of stories' Evening Standard, 2 February 2004 (Evening Standard)

'A beautifully crafted, compassionate novel, well worth reading' Bulletin with Newsweek, 4/5/04 (Bulletin with Newsweek, Australia)

'[Hortense] has guts and this portrait of her world is created with strong feeling that is subtly, and brilliantly, rendered' Sydney Morning Herald, 1/5/04 (Sydney Morning Herald)

'Levy's greatest achievement in SMALL ISLAND is to convey how English racism was all the more heartbreaking for its colonial victims because it involved the crushing of their ideals... Small Island is too thoughtful a novel to promise its characters a happy ending, but it is generous enough to offer them hope'
--The New York Times Book Review

(The New York Times Book Review)

'Andrea Levy's beautifully wrought novel is a window into 1948 England...Levy demarcates class lines effortlessly--sparing postwar England nothing of its racism--as she weaves a bristling, funny, angry tale of love and sacrifice' Entertainment Weekly (Entertainment Weekly)

It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was.