Author Guide · Literary Fiction & Memoir
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In 1964, when Deborah Levy was five, her father, a historian and member of the ANC, was taken away as a political prisoner in Johannesburg. In 1968 the family left South Africa for London. Levy trained in theatre at Dartington College of Arts, wrote plays, among them Heresies for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and published three novels before 2000, then went quiet as a novelist for over a decade. Swimming Home, brought out in 2011 by the small press And Other Stories, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize; Hot Milk was shortlisted again in 2016. Alongside the novels she wrote the three-part Living Autobiography. This guide covers her 10 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 2011–2026 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Deborah Levy’s best-known books are the novels Swimming Home (2011) and Hot Milk (2016), both shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Man Who Saw Everything (2019) and August Blue (2023), and her Living Autobiography trilogy, which begins with Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013). Start with Swimming Home; below is what each book is about and the order to read them in.
Where to Start with Deborah Levy
If you want her breakthrough novel
→ Swimming Home (2011) — a short, strange summer holiday above Nice.
If you want memoir
→ Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013) — the first part of the Living Autobiography.
If you want a mother-and-daughter novel
→ Hot Milk (2016) — her second Booker shortlist.
If you want history and memory
→ The Man Who Saw Everything (2019) — London and East Berlin, 1988 and 2016.
10 Deborah Levy Books, in Order
Swimming Home
In the summer of 1994 the poet Joe Jacobs, his wife Isabel, a foreign correspondent, and their daughter Nina are sharing a holiday villa in the hills above Nice with another couple when they find a young woman, Kitty Finch, floating in the pool. She is alive, a self-styled botanist and a fan of Joe’s poetry, and Isabel invites her to stay. Published by And Other Stories, it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012 and filmed by Justin Anderson in 2024.
Black Vodka
Her second collection of short stories, also published by And Other Stories. The title story was shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award in 2012, and the collection for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in 2013.
Things I Don’t Want to Know
A short reply to George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Why I Write”, in four parts named after his four motives: political purpose, historical impulse, sheer egoism and aesthetic enthusiasm. It moves between a trip to Majorca in a bad year, her childhood in Johannesburg while her father was in prison, and her teenage years in London.
Hot Milk
Sofia, in her twenties, takes her mother Rose to Almería on the south-east coast of Spain to see a specialist about the illness that keeps Rose in a wheelchair, an illness no doctor has been able to explain. While Rose is examined, Sofia swims, gets stung by jellyfish and falls for a German woman, Ingrid. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize in 2016, and Rebecca Lenkiewicz filmed it in 2025 with Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps.
The Cost of Living
The second part of the trilogy begins as her marriage ends when she is about fifty: a move with her daughters into a flat in north London, writing in a shed in a friend’s garden, and her mother’s illness and death. The Guardian placed it 84th in its 2019 list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.
The Man Who Saw Everything
In 1988 Saul Adler, a young historian, is hit by a car on Abbey Road, just after his girlfriend Jennifer Moreau has photographed him crossing it. He goes on to study in East Berlin, months before the Wall comes down. In the second half he is hit by a car on Abbey Road again, in 2016, and the two times start to bleed into each other. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2019.
Real Estate
The last part of the trilogy, written as her sixtieth birthday approaches and her younger daughter leaves for university. She moves between a writing fellowship in Paris, a literary festival in Mumbai, her late stepmother’s flat in Manhattan and a summer rental in Greece, and makes a list of the property she would like to own, real and imagined, from a house to a pomegranate tree.
August Blue
Elsa M. Anderson, a 34-year-old concert pianist, walks off stage in Vienna partway through a Rachmaninov concerto. In Athens she sees a woman buying toy horses who seems to be her double, and the woman follows her around Europe. Elsa was in foster care until she was six, when the piano teacher Arthur Goldstein took her in and renamed her.
The Position of Spoons
A collection of essays and short pieces on the writers and artists who have shaped her, among them Marguerite Duras, Colette, J.G. Ballard, Lee Miller, Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, mixed with scenes from her own life.
My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein
An unnamed narrator moves to Paris to learn about Gertrude Stein and befriends Eva, an artist in a long-distance marriage, and Fanny, a financier. The three cook, walk, read and argue, while the narrator compares her own questions about art, language, fathers and living abroad with Stein’s a century earlier. Penguin published it in April 2026.
In What Order to Read Deborah Levy
The novels stand alone, so you can read them in any order. The Living Autobiography is different: Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate follow one life across about fifteen years and are best read in that order.
A good route is to alternate: a novel, then a volume of the autobiography written around the same time. Hot Milk and The Cost of Living share a preoccupation with mothers and daughters, and the essays in The Position of Spoons show where many of her images come from.
A reading path
1. Swimming Home (2011)
2. Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013)
3. Hot Milk (2016)
4. The Cost of Living (2018)
5. The Man Who Saw Everything (2019)
6. Real Estate (2021)
Everything Else Deborah Levy Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 5 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early fiction
4
4 books · 1985–1996
- 1985Ophelia and the Great Ideaher first collection of short stories
- 1987Beautiful Mutantsher first novel
- 1993Swallowing Geographynovel
- 1996Billy and Girlnovel
Poetry
1
1 book · 1990
- 1990An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hella long poem
The years · 1959–2026
Quick facts about Deborah Levy
- Known for
- Deborah Levy is known for short, image-driven novels about women and families on the edge, and for a three-part memoir about writing, motherhood and starting again.
- 1959
- Born in Johannesburg, South Africa
- 1968
- The family moves to London
- 1987
- First novel, Beautiful Mutants
- 2011
- Swimming Home
- 2026
- My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein
- Born
- 6 August 1959, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Family
- Her father, Norman Levy, was a historian and ANC member held as a political prisoner; the family left for London in 1968
- Education
- Dartington College of Arts
- Early career
- Playwright; Heresies was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company
- Booker Prize
- Shortlisted 2012 and 2016, longlisted 2019
- Honours
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2017); Prix Femina étranger (2020)
The red mark is 2011: Swimming Home, the novel that brought her to a wide readership.
How Deborah Levy Writes: Short Books, Strong Images
Levy began in the theatre, and her novels are built like plays: a small cast, one place, a few days. Swimming Home is a holiday villa over a week, Hot Milk a Spanish coastal town over a summer. The books are short, the chapters often a page or two, and much of what matters is left unsaid between characters.
She works through recurring images rather than plot explanations: Kitty Finch’s painted green fingernails, the jellyfish in Hot Milk, the photograph on Abbey Road in The Man Who Saw Everything, the toy horses in August Blue. In The Man Who Saw Everything she lets two time periods, 1988 and 2016, run into each other without signposts.
Her memoirs use the same tools on her own life. Things I Don’t Want to Know takes its structure from Orwell’s “Why I Write”, and the trilogy keeps returning to the question of what it costs a woman to write. In The Position of Spoons she names the writers behind that approach, among them Marguerite Duras and Colette.
Frequently asked questions about Deborah Levy’s books
How many books has Deborah Levy written?
About fifteen, besides her plays. Ten are the key books on this page, from Swimming Home (2011) to My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein (2026); the others are her early fiction (a story collection and three novels, 1985–1996) and a book-length poem (1990).
What are Deborah Levy’s books in order?
Swimming Home (2011), Black Vodka (2013), Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013), Hot Milk (2016), The Cost of Living (2018), The Man Who Saw Everything (2019), Real Estate (2021), August Blue (2023), The Position of Spoons (2024) and My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein (2026). Before these came Ophelia and the Great Idea (1985), Beautiful Mutants (1987), Swallowing Geography (1993) and Billy and Girl (1996).
Where should I start with Deborah Levy?
Swimming Home: it is short, it was her breakthrough, and it shows her style at its most concentrated. If you prefer non-fiction, start with Things I Don’t Want to Know, the first part of the Living Autobiography.
What is Deborah Levy’s most famous book?
Swimming Home (2011) and Hot Milk (2016), both shortlisted for the Booker Prize, are her best-known novels. Of the memoirs, The Cost of Living (2018) is the most widely read; The Guardian ranked it 84th among the 100 best books of the 21st century in 2019.
What is the Living Autobiography?
Levy’s three-part memoir: Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013), The Cost of Living (2018) and Real Estate (2021). Each can be read alone, but they follow one life in order, from her childhood in South Africa to the years around her sixtieth birthday.
Has Deborah Levy won the Booker Prize?
No. She has been shortlisted twice, for Swimming Home in 2012 and Hot Milk in 2016, and longlisted for The Man Who Saw Everything in 2019. She has also been shortlisted twice for the Goldsmiths Prize, in 2016 and 2019.
Have Deborah Levy’s books been made into films?
Yes. Swimming Home, directed by Justin Anderson, premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2024. Hot Milk, directed by Rebecca Lenkiewicz with Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2025.
Is Deborah Levy South African?
She was born in Johannesburg in 1959. Her father, a historian and member of the ANC, was imprisoned under apartheid, and in 1968 the family moved to London.
Who was Deborah Levy’s father?
Norman Levy, a historian and member of the ANC. He was held as a political prisoner in South Africa from 1964, when she was five, and the family left for London in 1968. His absence is at the centre of the South African chapters of Things I Don’t Want to Know.
What is Deborah Levy’s newest book?
My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, published by Penguin in April 2026: a work of fiction about a woman who moves to Paris to learn about Gertrude Stein.
Footnotes
- Deborah Levy — Wikipedia
- Swimming Home — Wikipedia
- Swimming Home — The Booker Prizes
- The Man Who Saw Everything — Goldsmiths Prize 2019
- August Blue — Kirkus Reviews
- My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein — Penguin
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Life falls apart. We try to get a grip. We try to hold it together.”
— Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living (2018)
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