Hortense shared Gilbert's dream of leaving Jamaica and coming to England to start a better life. But when she at last joins her husband, she is shocked by London's shabbiness and horrified at the way the English live. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was. Queenie's neighbours do not approve of her choice of tenants, and neither would her husband, were he there. Through the stories of these people, Small Island explores a point in England's past when the country began to change.
Small Island
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Review
‘It’s an engrossing read - slyly funny, passionately angry and wholly involving’ -- Daily Mail, February 6, 2004
‘Powerful...rigorous...bittersweet...touching’ -- Independent on Sunday, January 21, 2004
‘Powerful...rigorous...bittersweet...touching’ -- Independent on Sunday, January 21, 2004
About the Author
Andrea Levy was born in England to Jamaican parents. She is the author of Every Light In The House Burnin', Never Far From Nowhere and Fruit Of The Lemon, all of which were critically acclaimed. She has been a judge for the Orange Prize for Fiction, a recipient of an Arts Council Writer's Award, and lives and works in London.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
135 of 142 people found the following review helpful
By John Self
Format:Paperback
Andrea Levy's novel (her fourth, and how ashamed do I feel now for never having heard of her before?) has already won the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Novel award, and is now favourite on the shortlist for the overall Whitbread Book of the Year. It deserves them all. (And this is a message, too: the Whitbread is now the award to watch. Didn't it daringly give ostensibly a children's book the Book of the Year award in 2001 for Pullman's exceptional The Amber Spyglass? In the Booker this year, Small Island didn't even make the longlist.)
The 'today' of the novel is 1948, when Queenie Bligh has given up waiting for her husband Bernard to come back from his service in the Second World War, and to make ends meet has let rooms in her house out to immigrants from Jamaica, among them Gilbert Joseph and his wife Hortense. And that is Small Island in a sentence. But it takes us back through the four main characters' lives before and during the war, each speaking to us in their own voice. The ventriloquism is elegant and brilliantly managed, making us sympathetic to all the characters in turn, and gripped by their flowingly told stories; so much so that when they come into conflict at the end of the novel, we are as torn as they are, and don't know which way to turn.
There is tragedy and comedy everywhere in Small Island, and Levy seems incapable of misjudging the tone, whether she wants to depict casual racism, tender young friendship, cold middle-class romance, or the numb relentlessness of twentieth century warfare. The writing is frequently beautiful, and she has a way of approaching a new scene sidelong, rather than head-on, that brings the reader into it with freshness and curiosity. Minor characters come alive.
... Read more ›18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
The author brilliantly tells this wartime tale of a Jamaican airman who returns to post war England with his young wife to find a less than welcoming populace awaiting them.The "small island" of the title is the derisory name Jamaicans give to the smaller sattelite islands whose populace have less than worldly ways.
The airman and his wife come to regard themselves,in turn,as small islanders lost in the strange,cold London of the 1940's.However, the reader soon finds the true "small island" to be a Britain given to insular attitudes and racial ignorance.
The airman and his wife come to regard themselves,in turn,as small islanders lost in the strange,cold London of the 1940's.However, the reader soon finds the true "small island" to be a Britain given to insular attitudes and racial ignorance.
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is well deserving of its accolades; Whitbread Book of the Year and the Orange Prize for fiction. It covers the period at the end of the Second World War, when men from the Commonwealth who'd fought on Britain's side emigrated to the "Mother Land", expecting a very different welcome.
The story is related by the four main characters. Two are from Jamaica, Hortense and Gilbert; more British than the British, they leave their homeland where they are respected members of a community, to seek their golden future. Gilbert hopes to train as a lawyer but finds prejudice against him and has to settle for a job driving a Royal Mail van. Hortense finds similar prejudice when she applies for a teaching job. With her impeccable manners and dress sense, she is horrified by the coarse way of life in her new home.
They take lodgings with Queenie, a great character, who is letting out rooms to make ends meet while her husband, Bernard, is fighting in India. It is assumed that he will not return, so when he suddenly reappears, the comfortable balance within the house is tipped. He demands that these 'coloureds' leave immediately.
There are a number of themes covered by the book, but the one that stuck with me was the problem encountered by men who had risked their lives to fight against Hitler and deserved recognition, but instead were treated with contempt when they arrived on British shores as civilians. Also that there were people, like Queenie, who ignored what other people thought and befriended these outcasts.
Highly recommended.
The story is related by the four main characters. Two are from Jamaica, Hortense and Gilbert; more British than the British, they leave their homeland where they are respected members of a community, to seek their golden future. Gilbert hopes to train as a lawyer but finds prejudice against him and has to settle for a job driving a Royal Mail van. Hortense finds similar prejudice when she applies for a teaching job. With her impeccable manners and dress sense, she is horrified by the coarse way of life in her new home.
They take lodgings with Queenie, a great character, who is letting out rooms to make ends meet while her husband, Bernard, is fighting in India. It is assumed that he will not return, so when he suddenly reappears, the comfortable balance within the house is tipped. He demands that these 'coloureds' leave immediately.
There are a number of themes covered by the book, but the one that stuck with me was the problem encountered by men who had risked their lives to fight against Hitler and deserved recognition, but instead were treated with contempt when they arrived on British shores as civilians. Also that there were people, like Queenie, who ignored what other people thought and befriended these outcasts.
Highly recommended.
32 of 35 people found the following review helpful
By ms frazzled
Format:Hardcover
I read this book in two days, I thought a was reading the autobiography of my parents, except they came from Guyana. I arrived in England with my mother to Ladbroke Grove, via Liverpool in 1958. This book is accurate,poignant and painful I struggled to read past page 272, I could have written it myself. It is lyrical, humourous, sad, educative and evocative. I didn't want it to end. It deserves the Orange fiction prize well done Andrea.
40 of 44 people found the following review helpful
By Jaycee
Format:Paperback
I have not yet finished the book but have been compelled to write this review. Small Island for me has been entertaining as well as educational. As a black briton of Jamaican descent it has served as a historical account of what my grandparents may have experienced on coming to England shortly after the second world war. it also serves as a intimate view of how the British experience of the pre and post war England through an honest and emotive account of their feelings of a new multi cultural England that they had never encountered before.
subconcioulsy it reflects attitudes that both immigrants and inhabitants are still experiencing within England today. I have never read anything that attempts to do this. I simply must read on and I cannot wait for the twist at the end.
subconcioulsy it reflects attitudes that both immigrants and inhabitants are still experiencing within England today. I have never read anything that attempts to do this. I simply must read on and I cannot wait for the twist at the end.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Book
Great read by my daughter Laura who always has her head in a book and will probably order more books in the future
Published 8 hours ago by Simon Davey
5.0 out of 5 stars
As seen in TV
I saw the BBC series and thought that was very good so I am looking forward to reading is book.
Published 13 days ago by E. Downer
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thought provoking and page turning delight.
This book had me gripped from the beginning. The experiences of immigrants from the Caribbean arriving in England after the war are brought very powerfully alive. Read more
Published 1 month ago by vanna
4.0 out of 5 stars
Teenagers
A very good insight into teenagers and how they think and behave as they grow up. Also the life of black and white in a difficult time and place. Read more
Published 2 months ago by K. Steele
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant
An excellent read. Takes you back to post war Britain. Really well written. I've read a few Andrea Levy books and enjoyed them all
Published 2 months ago by Polly
4.0 out of 5 stars
A gripping read
This book combines the Second World War with the racism faced by people settling here afterwards. I found it gripping and also moving. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Bloomer
4.0 out of 5 stars
Small Island
I found this book interesting but rather sad. I would recommend that it should be widely read, if only to remind readers of how unwelcome we as a country made immigrants feel when... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kathleen Wilder
5.0 out of 5 stars
Work of a genius
This is brilliant. Andrea Levy writes a very good and very moving story beautifully. Buy it, you won't regret it.
Published 5 months ago by Elise
5.0 out of 5 stars
Small Island, Anderea Levy
A totally brilliant novel the reader can be enveloped into. Very interesting and thought provoking especially the facts surrounding the second world war in terms of the people of... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Elizabeth Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic story!
You have to buy so many books at GCSE level and AS level so buying DVD as well secondhand benefits your purse, the planet and the student! Read more
Published 5 months ago by Anne
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