Deborah Levy: ‘CS Lewis’s White Witch terrified me – but I wanted to meet her’

The South African author on discovering Colette, being inspired by JG Ballard, and the subversive joys of Asako Yuzuki My earliest reading memory The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss, particularly the little red fan the cat holds in the tip of its tail. At the age of five, I was reading The Famous Five, getting to grips with Enid Blyton’s most complex characters, Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin. I was born in apartheid South Africa. The children in the Famous Five series had no human rights problem...

By Deborah Levy