7.2 /10 1 Votes
Country America Subject War Pages 416 Set in Jamaica Award Walter Scott Prize | 3.6/5 Goodreads Language English Publisher Charnwood Originally published 4 February 2010 Page count 416 Genre Literary fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Awards Notable Book of the Year, Walter Scott Prize Similar Small Island, Parrot and Olivier in America, In a Strange Room, Fruit of the Lemon, Never far from nowhere | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Andrea levy on her novel the long song
The Long Song is a historical novel by Andrea Levy published in 2010 that was the recipient of the Walter Scott Prize.
Contents
Andrea levy on her latest novel the long song
Plot summary
The Long Song is written as a memoir by an elderly Jamaican woman living in early 19th-century Jamaica during the final years of slavery and the transition to freedom that took place thereafter. It tells the tale of a young slave girl, July, who lives at Amity – a sugarcane plantation. She lived through the 1831 Baptist War, and then the beginning of freedom. Her mother, Kitty; the negroes working the plantation land; and the owner of the plantation, the white woman Caroline Mortimer, are other characters in the novel.
Themes
The themes of the book incorporate: how it feels being an immigrant Jamaican, racism, black versus white, landlord versus tenant, slavery and its abolition, slave uprisings, rape, 1831 Baptist War, the clergy and love triangles.
Criticism
Kate Kellaway in The Observer; Tayari Jones in the Washington Post, Fernanda Eberstadt in The New York Times, and Amanda Craig in The Telegraph gave the book positive reviews.
Awards
The Long Song was a finalist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. It was the recipient of the 2011 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. The New York Times Book Review named it a Notable Book of the Year.