The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy

'I was looking at the imitations of the Fabulous Four, I was looking at a piece of history being enacted and I was also looking at the form of the zebra crossing because it's not clear where it begins and ends. Lots of writing, for me, isn't jotting things down in my notebooks or researching big tomes. To do that, you have to look very closely, observe quite closely to imitate someone. I thought, 'So this is a very playful way of doing history.' I've always been interested in imitation because we do it in families, where we torment each other by imitating brothers and sisters. I would sit on the wall outside EMI Studios and watch people walk across that road. I was thinking about how a piece of history is being reenacted by all the tourists who come to that zebra crossing and choose their favourite Beatle, usually Paul and John, Ringo not so much and it's hard to know who's doing George Harrison. 'I went to Abbey Road every day for two weeks, just sitting there. Levy spoke to Eleanor Wachtel onstage in Toronto. The second volume, The Cost of Living, was published to critical acclaim in 2018.

After her father's release from prison, the family relocated to England, an experience she writes about in the first volume of her 'living autobiography,' Things I Don't Want to Know. Levy was born in South Africa in 1959, to parents who were active in the anti-apartheid movement. A finalist for Britain's Goldsmith Prize, it's a richly layered exploration of history, memory and perception, which challenges the very nature of truth. Focusing on a strikingly beautiful young man, the novel moves from the 1980s to 2016, from London's Abbey Road to East Berlin before the fall of the wall.

Her latest book, The Man Who Saw Everything, is an enigmatic, mind-bending story that makes startling connections through time and space.

The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy