Booker Prize Winner

Moon Tiger

by Penelope Lively

Summary

Lying in a London hospital bed, a formidable popular historian sets out to write a history of the world that is also, secretly, the story of a wartime love affair in the Egyptian desert. Lively cuts between voices, decades and points of view, dramatising how memory itself behaves like a contested historical record. The novel is a graceful meditation on the way private passions shape and are shaped by public history.

Historical Context & Significance

Lively was previously known as a children's author; this win solidified her reputation in adult fiction.