Summary

In “The Writing of The Long Song”, Andrea Levy recounts the process of writing her novel The Long Song, a story set in Jamaica during and shortly after the slavery era.

Levy is inspired to write the novel at a conference about the legacy of slavery, where a Jamaican woman from the audience claims she is ashamed that her ancestors were slaves. Levy believes that one should not be ashamed of having slave ancestors because being a slave and surviving slavery is something to be appreciated.

She wants to convey this idea in a novel, but she does not want the novel to be about slavery; she wants the narrative to be about the strong character of slaves. She realises that she will have to do a lot of historical research to deliver the novel, but she finds this natural because her previous novels dealt with Jamaican immigrants.

She begins recollecting what she learned in school about slavery in Jamaica, but historical facts are general and do not offer a lot of detail or inspiration. Then she uses her ...