Oleander, Jacaranda

A Childhood Perceived

Penelope Lively author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd

Published:27th Apr '06

Should be back in stock very soon

Oleander, Jacaranda cover

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.

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 *

ISBN: 9780141188324

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 13mm

Weight: 169g

208 pages