NPR reviews Andrea Levy’s new book,
The Long Song.
Andrea Levy’s
Small Island, which won England’s 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction and Whitbread Book of the Year awards, traced the experiences of a Jamaican-born RAF volunteer and his teacher wife as they settled in 1948 London (the PBS series drawn from the novel aired in April). It was based in part upon the lives of Levy’s parents’ generation. Her new book,
The Long Song, is a remarkable and profoundly imagined re-creation of plantation life in the waning days of slavery in 1830s Jamaica.
Levy infuses her new novel with historical references and authentic details. She also has a wicked sense of humor. “It was finished almost as soon as it began,” she writes in her opening lines, describing the act that results in the conception of her narrator July, a bold, engaging and keenly observant mulatto: “Kitty felt such little intrusion from the overseer Tam Dewar’s part that she decided to believe him merely jostli
Tamara Lawrance stars as an indomitable house slave in Jamaica during the era of emancipation, with Hayley Atwell as her demanding, capricious mistress, in “The Long Song,” a miniseries in three parts beginning Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021, on WGCU PBS.
Based on the award-winning novel by Andrea Levy, the miniseries airs through February 14, 2021, at 10 pm.
The British press applauded the UK broadcast of “The Long Song,” with The
Guardian calling it “a beautiful, moving, horrifying adaptation of Levy’s
unsimple tale, that honors the source and its subject.” The Radio Times
judged it “so finely-tuned and carefully-balanced that it’ll break your heart
based on the bestselling novel by Andrea Levy
on MASTERPIECE
Sundays, January 31 – February 14, 2021 on PBS
Tamara Lawrance (King Charles III) stars as an indomitable house slave in Jamaica during the era of emancipation, with Hayley Atwell
(The Avengers) as her demanding, capricious mistress, in
The Long Song. Based on the award-winning novel by Andrea Levy, the miniseries airs in three parts on MASTERPIECE, Sundays, January 31 – February 14, 2021 at 10 pm on PBS.
Shown from left to right: July (TAMARA LAWRANCE), Nimrod (JORDAN BOLGER)
(C) Heyday Television – Photographer: Carlos Rodriguez
The British press applauded the UK broadcast of
The Long Song, with The Guardian calling it “a beautiful, moving, horrifying adaptation of Levy’s unsimple tale, that honors the source and its subject.” The Radio Times judged it “so finely-tuned and carefully-balanced that it’ll break your heart and make you laugh at the same time.” And The Times opined, “What can a
January 22, 2021
Masterpiece miniseries premieres Sunday, January 31 at 10 p.m. on THIRTEEN
Set on a sugarcane plantation during the end of slavery in 19th century Jamaica, the
Masterpiece miniseries
King Charles III), a young enslaved woman with an indomitable spirit, and her detestable mistress, Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell,
The Avengers).
Their lives change with the arrival of the charming new overseer, Robert Goodwin (Jack Lowden,
Dunkirk), who sets out to improve the plantation. The drama unfolds during the transition from slavery to freedom in Jamaica and is an adaptation of Caribbean British writer Andrea Levy’s fifth novel, which won the Walter Scott award and was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.