Treasure Beach Forum: "SMALL ISLAND" (NOVELIST: ANDREA LEVY):: MASTERPIECE CLASSIC

"SMALL ISLAND" (NOVELIST: ANDREA LEVY):: MASTERPIECE CLASSIC

Treasure Beach Forum: TB Runnin's: "SMALL ISLAND" (NOVELIST: ANDREA LEVY):: MASTERPIECE CLASSIC

By ZED on Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 09:05 am: Edit Post

By ZED on Tuesday, May 04, 2010 - 02:56 pm: Edit Post

THE FULL EPISODE 2 OF SMALL ISLAND is now available on Masterpiece Classic:

CLIK ON:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/smallisland/watch.html

VIEW FULL EPISODE

For those who are following Andrea Levy's literary career, she has a new novel out, The Long Song, in which she explores the legacy of slavery.

Ms. Levy was supposed to be on a speaking/reading your, for the Long Song of Canada & the US, but the unfortunate travel havoc caused by the Icelandic volcano has caused postponements & cancellations.
When the tour resumes, her accents & character mimicry, in recitation, as past Calabash audiences were aware, is worthy of an audience...Here are some accounts of the new novel:

"At a conference in London, several years ago, the topic for discussion was the legacy of slavery. A young woman stood up to ask a heartfelt question of the panel: How could she be proud of her Jamaican roots, she wanted to know, when her ancestors had been slaves? I cannot recall the panel’s response to the woman’s question but, as I sat silently in the audience, I do remember my own. Of Jamaican heritage myself, I wondered why anyone would feel any ambivalence or shame at having a slave ancestry? Had she never felt the sentiments once expressed to me by a Jamaican acquaintance of mine? ‘If our ancestors survived the slave ships they were strong. If they survived the plantations they were clever.’ It is a rich and proud heritage. It was at that moment that I felt something stirring in me. Could a novelist persuade this young woman to have pride in her slave ancestors through telling her a story? That was where the idea for The Long Song started."

Your new novel, “The Long Song,” is set around the end of slavery. You’ve said in the past that you had some initial reservations about writing about slavery. What were they and how did you overcome them?

"It was going to be pretty tough just immersing myself in all that brutality and nineteenth century racism. But then I began to realise what a massive hole there is in British history concerning the 300 years of slavery in the Caribbean. We know more about slavery in America than we do about the Caribbean. How did those enslaved people build their day-to-day lives, their culture, their society through such a long period of time? We don’t really know because there are so few written records. Then, when I heard a young black British woman admit how ashamed she was of her slave ancestry, I knew I had to write this book. I had to tell a story that would make her proud. A story about people who were much more than just “slaves.” In the end it wasn’t depressing at all."

How did you do your research for “The Long Song”?

"I said there were very few written records in the British Caribbean. That’s true as far as slave narratives go. America has more I think. But white people wrote plenty. Plantation owners and their wives, government officials, missionaries, merchants they all seemed to publish books and journals about the trials and tribulations of living alongside the “lazy, happy, childish, deceitful negroes.” These were a valuable source for building up a vivid picture of what life must have been like. The pedestrian detail, naivety and prejudice of these accounts made it possible to read between the lines and see the world from the point-of-view of the enslaved people. I also went to Jamaica and stayed on an old sugar plantation with all the old Georgian houses and factory buildings still there. This was invaluable in giving me a feel for the geography of the place that I was writing about. The old slave quarters were gone, not surprisingly, but the lumpy scrub land that remained was scattered with broken pottery."

www.andrealevy.co.uk/

We find Ms Levy's Jamaican ancestry quite interesting, including the fact of her Jewish paternal grandfather.(Levy)
It has been just several weeks since Jews the world over have observed the Passover, commemorating the Exodus, "in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt."
The Exodus story and Moses leadership to the Promised Land continues to be an inspiration of Liberation and human rights throughout mankind's history.
Bob Marley's album, Exodus, is held up by the global community, as a beacon for the march out of iniquity, shame & subjugation into the "new land" of justice, regardless of the injustices fought to claim these realms.

So, now Andrea Levy, the pride of Jamaican parentage, who emigrated to England, on the legendary ship the Empire Windrush in 1948, has returned, in her imagination & quest, to simmering stories in how the ignominy, subjugation, the lash of slavery might have constructed the strengths, wiles and endurance of the Jamaican character.

Inquiring minds would like to know if there is any personal history of Treasure Beach (St Bess) folk, who, themselves, or their parents might have emigrated to England on the Empire Windbush or subsequent voyages at a time when the "mother country" loosened its emigration policies for its lowly subjects in the "small islands" in order to rebuild a war-ravaged Nation & declining Empire .

By Just Asking on Tuesday, May 04, 2010 - 10:19 pm: Edit Post

Hi Andrea are you related to the Levy in Newell I am so proud of you.

By ZED on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 - 06:42 am: Edit Post

WATCH & LISTEN TO ANDREA LEVY explaining the genesis of her new novel, The Long Song...reading some excerpts & presenting some telling historical print/photographs from the era of the Planters of di sugar cane in Jamaica.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W-oV_fSChg

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3mdysGaTIE&feature=channel

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOMREJLzrOc&feature=channel

Andrea recommends 3 influential books... after her own & advice on getting published:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2PiO76ufjk&feature=fvw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK5K8a4N4o0&feature=channel

Text Extract from The Long Song: Forward & Chapter 1

www.andrealevy.co.uk/the_long_song/index.php