Moon Tiger

Shortlisted for the Golden Man Booker 2018

Winner of the Booker Prize 1987

A history of the world, yes. And in the process, my own. The life and Times of Claudia H. The bit of the twentieth century to which I’ve been shackled, willy-nilly, like it or not.

Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger is the tale of a historian confronting her own, personal history, unearthing the passions and pains that have defined her life.

Claudia Hampton, a beautiful, famous writer, lies dying in hospital. But, as the nurses tend to her with quiet condescension, she is plotting her greatest work: 'a history of the world ... and in the process, my own'. Gradually she re-creates the rich mosaic of her life and times, conjuring up those she has known.

There is Gordon, her adored brother; Jasper, the charming, untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool, conventional daughter; and Tom, her one great love, both found and lost in wartime Egypt.

Penelope Lively's Booker Prize-winning novel weaves an exquisite mesh of memories, flashbacks and shifting voices, in a haunting story of loss and desire.

This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Anthony Thwaite.