I read Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy having been recommended it on my Creative Writing MA as a great book about writing and it didn’t disappoint. Levy writes beautifully about her childhood growing up in apartheid South African with her father a political prisoner for five years for being a supporter of the ANC and what it was like to be sent to live with her racist Godmother and Godfather, having be taught to grow up respecting the black adults and children in her life.

This story is intertwined with one Majorcan winter where she goes at a tricky time in her life to escape and write without distractions. Here she seeks respite with unmarried and child-free hotelier Maria, who runs a small ‘pension’ on behalf of her brother (until she too has enough of her life and walks out). In this winter in a restaurant by an open fire the author makes friends with a Chinese shopkeeper who prompts her to tell her story and the memories of South Africa, and then life exiled in England, with divorced parents come spilling out.

This is a charming essay about the necessity of writing, relationships and the solace that the written word provides. A lovely read.