A Highbury Girl - Andrea Levy Legacy

Author of Small Island, Andrea Levy was born in Islington’s Whittington Hospital in 1956. She grew up with her family in Twyford House on the Blackstock Estate and attended Highbury Hill Grammar School (now Highbury Fields School).

During the spring and summer 2023, All Change Associate Artists Rakaya Fetuga and Chanté Timothy, supported by Young Creatives Emma Pritchard and Sagal Hussein, worked with young women in Year 8 at Highbury Fields School to create, perform and publish their own creative writing and poetry work, drawing inspiration from both Andrea’s writing and life story. Participating young women have been given their own copies of Andrea’s novels, including Small Island, Never Far from Nowhere, Fruit of the Lemon and Every Light in the House Burnin’.

Andrea Levy
Daughter of Windrush
Empire and Banana Boats
Jamaican, Jewish, Caribbean, European
British: A Highbury girl.
Ports meeting at the rungs of her spine.
Costume lover, artist of textiles design.
Last born of four, wash belly baby,
working class in Thatcher's Britain,
fun loving, entertainment seeker,
never a writer, not even a reader.

Until she was 23,
picked up a book for the very first time
and inhaled a library -
pages flying, pulling her eyes open wide
to a rude awakening:
she had to choose between being black and white,
she had to withstand the hardships of women.

So she read her way into history,
she read for missed time,
she read everything until her eyes dried,
she read until she wrote,
until her father passed and she needed
to understand where she came from.
Her novels formed along mooring ropes
keeping the present anchored to the past.

Full of humour and heartbreak and homeland
and what it means when a Mother Country bites,
when she spits
when she laughs at you and pretends she's nice
when she says sweetly like it's a matter of fact:
you're worthless, your people are worthless
and your stories are worthless.

But Andrea's books were worth a read
were worth a prize, or three or more
were worth a ponder, worth a study
a worthwhile key to open doors
for other writers, "worthless writers"
brave enough to push for more.

Andrea Levy poem by Rakaya Fetuga
Andrea Levy illustration by Chanté Timothy

Photo by Royal Society of Literature RSL

A Highbury Girl is a zine featuring poetry by the young women inspired by Andrea’s life and work, a specially commissioned poem by Rakaya Fetuga and illustrations by Chanté Timothy, published by All Change.

The project is part of Get Islington Reading, a three-year campaign to develop a community of happy, confident readers across Islington. The campaign is delivered by the National Literacy Trust and The Reading Agency with partners Islington Council Library Services, islington Education Library Service and Islington School Improvement Service.

BOLD,BRAVE,WONDER WOMEN OF ISLINGTON

The A HIGHBURY GIRL zine is the first in a series of zines celebrating the stories of more than 50 Bold, Brave, Wonder Women of Islington. This collection of inspiring stories of historical and contemporary Islington women, chosen and told by the women of the borough, is designed to inspire future generations.

Find more inspiring stories at www.islington4women.org