Deborah Levy, now in her seventies, emerges as a leading voice in contemporary literature. Born to a family of South African anti-apartheid activists, she has long been celebrated for a restless intellect, a sharp eye for female subjectivity, and a fearless approach to narrative form. Over the decades she has been regarded as one of Britain’s most respected literary figures, recognized for pushing the boundaries of fiction and essay alike. In the 1980s she explored the theater with provocative plays, earning attention from the avant-garde crowd. By the end of that decade she had shifted toward longer prose, and her early nominations began in 2011 with Nadando a casa. Her work, including The All-Seeing Man from Random House/Angle, positions her as a distinctive voice exploring women’s lives and perspectives, particularly those aged 40 to 60, within a broader literary landscape.
Her vita includes a deep affection for life’s simple pleasures and a fondness for places that offer reflection. The pleasures of living, even on rainy London days, serve as a counterpoint to the bustle of modern city life. Greece features prominently as a place of humane pace, where life unfolds slowly under a blue sky. A simple meal—bread, a juicy tomato, feta cheese, olives, and a glass of local wine—becomes a setting for insight, reading, and writing. Levy speaks of swimming in those waters with a quiet, almost visceral enthusiasm. This week, travel considerations aside, she reflects on whether a Barcelona swim could serve the same purpose, noting the changing realities around travel and climate.
“Literature should slow down the mind and pull us away from the constant pull of the screen”
Written in 2016 and still in publication, The All-Seeing Man connects to an impulse to counteract a low-grade anxiety seeping into contemporary life. Levy argues that writers must observe differently from newspapers. It is essential to stay aware of external events, yet equally crucial to internalize that perspective—moving away from a relentless news cycle and its distractions. The idea is to let literature slow the human rhythm rather than speed it up.
as David Lynch
The novel’s central figure, the strikingly handsome young bisexual British historian Saul, ends a relationship with his photographer partner and travels to East Germany in 1988, just before the wall’s fall. The book, subtitled Everything is History, traverses the late 20th century and the rise and fall of various regimes. Its devilish structure invites comparisons to David Lynch’s Lost Highway, inviting readers to question whether pivotal moments are imprinted by the past or reframed by the present. The narrative plays with time, letting tense shifts collide in surprising ways. Levy notes her fascination with revisiting the Abbey Road crosswalk as a contemporary symbol where history is continually reinterpreted by visitors, mirroring the book’s own temporal play.
“The personal is not only political but also historical”
One of the novel’s cornerstones is the Berlin Wall, depicted as both imminent and already dismantled in the characters’ world. Saul senses a distance growing between him and his father, a wall that becomes a metaphor for masculinity as traditionally imagined. Levy uses intimate anecdotes to link private experience with larger historical forces, underscoring that personal life cannot be separated from political and historical contexts. The author also reflects on contemporary border politics, including Brexit and its echo of wall-building rhetoric. The text draws a parallel to East German citizens who once faced physical barriers born from fear, arguing that such barriers become unsustainable when fear governs long-term choices.
“With all our contradictions, we do not see ourselves as fixed, we are all evolving”
Levy’s work challenges traditional gender roles and binary thinking. She seeks to reverse the long-standing idea that thinkers are male and sensibilities female. The author resists a rigid gender binary, noting that younger generations increasingly reject simplistic masculine/feminine distinctions. Within the inner self, with all its contradictions, Levy suggests, there is no fixed label. She invites readers to imagine a freer, more expansive self, capable of transcending limiting stereotypes and embracing complexity rather than conformity. The writing champions a more fluid sense of identity and experience, emphasizing the liberating potential of imagination.