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Oleander, Jacaranda

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141188324

  • Length: 208  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 12mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 157g

  • RRP: £9.99

Oleander, Jacaranda

This autobiography is about growing up in Egypt. It is also an investigation into childhood perception in which the author uses herself and her memories as an insight into how children see and know. It is a look at Eygpt up to, and including, World War II from a small girl's point of view, which is also, ultimately, a moving and rather sad picture of an isolated and lonely little girl.

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141188324

  • Length: 208  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 12mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 157g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • So vividly evocative that you can smell the dust and dung, jacaranda and the oleander. It offers potent glimpses of British colonial life 50 years ago: the snake-charmer in the garden; the nine-year old Penelope spying on de Gaulle at Government House... The result is a wise, colourful and touching tale

    The Times

  • Lively uses the imaginative power of a mature novelist to evoke the sounds, sights and smells of Cairo which is not so much 'another country as another century'

    Independent

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About the Author

Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively was born in Cairo, Egypt and spent her childhood there. She came to England at the age of twelve, in 1945, and went to boarding school in Sussex. She went on to read Modern History at St Anne's College, Oxford. In 1957 she married Jack Lively (who died in 1998). They had two children, Josephine and Adam. Jack Lively's academic career took the family from Swansea to Sussex and Oxford, and eventually to Warwick University, where he was Professor of Politics. Penelope Lively now has six grandchildren and lives in London.

Penelope Lively

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