Deborah Levy's Literary Journey: From Childhood Fears to Subversive Novels
Acclaimed South African author Deborah Levy has opened up about the books that shaped her life and writing career, revealing a literary journey that spans from childhood classics to provocative contemporary fiction.
Earliest Reading Memories
Levy's earliest reading memory involves The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss, with particular fascination for "the little red fan the cat holds in the tip of its tail." By age five, she was immersed in Enid Blyton's The Famous Five series, grappling with what she describes as Blyton's "most complex characters, Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin."
Growing up in apartheid South Africa, Levy noted the stark contrast between her reality and the world depicted in these British children's books. "The children in the Famous Five series had no human rights problems," she observed, adding that the Dorset setting was "totally unknown" to her. Her Johannesburg childhood featured a bedroom window overlooking "a garden of bone-white grass and a peach tree."
Formative Literary Encounters
As she matured, Levy discovered C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, praising the author's "lucky strike" in using a wardrobe as a portal to another world. Despite being terrified by the White Witch, Levy confessed, "I wanted to meet her, who rode on a sleigh pulled by white reindeer."
During her teenage years, Colette's Chéri proved transformative. "For the sex and sadness about ageing and desire," Levy explained, acknowledging she "didn't quite understand" these themes at age fourteen. The novel's French setting fascinated her, as did its unconventional portrayal of male beauty as power. She read it surreptitiously "on the bus to school when I was supposed to be reading John Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn."
Literary Influences and Revelations
Around her forties, Levy discovered J.G. Ballard's later fiction, admiring how the author "found an intellectually entertaining way to air his preoccupations and obsessions." She specifically cited Cocaine Nights, which features "a charismatic, tanned tennis coach with perfect white teeth" who is "really a psychopath, yet people seem to like him and would even vote for him."
"I could see this was a beguiling social and psychological critique disguised as a beach novel," Levy noted, adding that it "changed my mind about how to proceed with some of my own writerly preoccupations, a few of which feature beaches and swimming pools."
Defining Literary Touchstones
James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Marguerite Duras's The Lover remain Levy's defining literary influences. She attributes this to "the depth charge of the prose, its beauty and pain, plenty of wit and high emotion."
For philosophical inspiration, Levy returns to Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, praising his "philosophical reflections on attics, cellars, corridors, nooks and crannies, doors and corners" as "always surprising and inspiring."
Rediscoveries and Current Reading
While writing her living autobiographies, Levy rediscovered Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which "brings to life her childhood with her formidable grandmother in the brutal, racist American south of the 1930s." She described Angelou's writing as having a "massive blast" that "cuts through more conventional autobiographies" with its "truth, power, historical reach, her skilful lift from life into literature."
Currently, Levy is reading Asako Yuzuki's subversive 2017 novel Butter, which explores "escaping from everyday misogyny." She particularly loves a scene where "the narrator, after enduring a day being undermined at work and a night of bad sex, slips out of her boyfriend's bed at 2am to find a place that will serve her consoling noodles. With butter, of course."
Literary Philosophy
Levy maintains a practical approach to reading: "I tend not to revisit books I totally could not get on with. We just have nothing to say to each other." This philosophy reflects her selective engagement with literature throughout her career.
My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy is published by Hamish Hamilton on 16 April.
