Small Island by bestselling author Andrea Levy won the Orange Prize for Fiction as well as many other awards including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize & the Whitbread Now a major BBC drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch & Naomie Harris its enduring appeal will captivate fans of Maya Angelou & Zadie Smith 'A great read honest skilful thoughtful & important'
- Guardian It is 1948 & England is recovering from a war But at 21 Nevern Street London the conflict has only just begun Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return or if he will come back at all What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie & knock at her door Gilbert's wife Hortense too had longed to leave Jamaica & start a better life in England But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby decrepit & far from the golden city of her dreams Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was