Penelope Lively
Penelope Lively: ‘I was a traumatised teenager’
The Booker-winning author on starting late as a writer, her clear recall of growing up in Cairo, and the TV programme that kept her going during lockdown
Rachel Cooke
16, Oct, 2021 @5:00 PM
Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Defoe – why are so many turning to classic novels?
As sales of literary heavyweights soar, Booker winner Penelope Lively says that getting lost in a good book is now more relevant than it has ever been
Donna Ferguson
25, Apr, 2020 @2:05 PM
Lemn Sissay: ‘My guilty pleasure is Lee Child’s Jack Reacher – no more films, OK?
The author and poet on what he learned from Malcolm X, Ladybird books and the exciting movement in African sci-fi
Lemn Sissay
13, Sep, 2019 @8:58 AM
Penelope Lively webchat: on Egypt, Englishness and her first memory
The acclaimed author answered your questions about her Booker prize-winning novel Moon Tiger, the state of children’s literature and more
01, Aug, 2018 @4:16 PM
The unfilmable brilliance of Moon Tiger
Penelope Lively’s novel defeated even Harold Pinter’s attempts to write a screenplay, and it’s not just the narrator’s voice that a camera couldn’t capture
Sam Jordison
17, Jul, 2018 @11:59 AM
Moon Tiger: ferociously complicated – and fantastically readable
Penelope Lively’s title takes its name from a brand of mosquito coil, which also suggests its circling narrative and the spiralling nature of memory
Sam Jordison
10, Jul, 2018 @9:59 AM
Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger is our reading group choice for July
Whether it wins this month’s Golden Man Booker prize remains to be seen, but the popular vote here has gone to an underrated classic
Sam Jordison
03, Jul, 2018 @10:37 AM
What it is like to win the Booker prize, by Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, Peter Carey and more
As the Man Booker prize turns 50 and readers vote for their favourite ever recipient, novelists reveal the highs (and lows) of winning ‘the Oscar’ of the literary world
Hilary Mantel, Julian Barnes Margaret Atwood, Howard Jacobson, Anne Enright, Peter Carey, Marlon James Pat Barker, John Banville, Penelope Lively, Ben Okri and DBC Pierre
30, Jun, 2018 @8:00 AM
Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively review – a rewarding, evocative ramble
In this vivid meditation, the novelist traces her love of gardens from childhood in Egypt to London and through art and literature
PD Smith
08, Jun, 2018 @1:00 PM
Hits and surprises as judges reveal the Man Booker’s shortlist of five golden decades
Mantel and Ondaatje are in but Rushdie’s out as judges name shortlist for public vote on best novel
Vanessa Thorpe
26, May, 2018 @6:00 PM
'Women are better writers than men': novelist John Boyne sets the record straight
Male authors are always pronouncing their own brilliance – or boasting about not reading books by women. So, after a lifetime spent writing and attending literary festivals, John Boyne would like to get something off his chest …
John Boyne
12, Dec, 2017 @6:00 AM
Penelope Lively: my debt to roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce
The Booker prizewinner on why Beatrix Potter influenced her writing and how she was defeated by one of the greatest novels of the 20th century
Penelope Lively
01, Dec, 2017 @10:00 AM
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