Small Island

Andrea Levy · 1956–2019 · England

Why it matters

A Jamaican couple and an English couple become landlady and lodgers in postwar London, their wartime pasts unspooling in alternating flashback. Levy's prize-sweeping novel gives Windrush-era Britain its defining fiction, from both sides of the doorstep.

At a glance

Clearly signposted multiple narrators and time-shifts keep an emotionally rich story easy to follow.