Penelope Lively

Adult works

Lively's novel Going Back was initially published as a children's book, because up to then she had only written books for children. The story is largely set during World War II at a country house where a local man is a conscientious objector and a young boy and his sister meet the man and discuss aspects of the war. Superficially the sustained focus on the boy and girl make it seem suitable for children, and there is no sex or bad language that would make it more appropriate for adults. But this long-ago story of the children during World War II is being remembered by the sister when she is a grown up woman, returning to the country house. Although this is not highlighted in the novel, by the end of the World War II remembering, the woman makes a powerful emotional connection with how she and her brother responded to their friend deciding to set aside his pacifist objections and join the military, and this memory from World War II is suddenly linked with her recollection of herself as a young adult, grieving when her brother was killed serving in the military during the Korean War. The importance of these adult memories later resulted in Going Back being reissued as an adult novel after Lively began to establish a new reputation as a writer for adults. Going Back is a novel that defies categories, as is her later novel The House in Norham Gardens, with the central character being an orphan teenager. Published as a children's book, it is better categorised as for "Young Adults", and the two important elderly maiden great-aunts who are raising the teenager make much of the book "adult" in many ways.

Lively's first novel expressly published for adults, The Road to Lichfield, was published in 1977 and made the shortlist for the Booker Prize. She repeated the feat in 1984 with According to Mark, and won the 1987 prize for Moon Tiger, which tells the story of a woman's tempestuous life as she lies dying in a hospital bed. As with all of Lively's fiction, Moon Tiger is marked by close attention to the power of memory, the impact of the past upon the present, and the tensions between "official" and personal histories.

She explored the same themes more explicitly in her non-fiction works, including A House Unlocked (2001) and Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived (1994), a memoir of her Egyptian childhood. Her latest non-fiction work Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life in Time, (latterly known as Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir) was published in 2013.

Besides novels and short stories, Lively has also written radio and television scripts, presented a radio programme, and contributed reviews and articles to various newspapers and journals.

Personal life

Lively married academic and political theorist Jack Lively in 1957. They had a son and a daughter. Her husband died in 1998. She currently lives in London. Her house contains paintings, woodcuts and Egyptian potsherds.

The journalist Valentine Low is Lively's half-brother.

Honours

Lively is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is also a vice-president of the Friends of the British Library. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1989, Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2001, and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to literature.

Lively was shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She won the 1987 Booker Prize for her novel Moon Tiger.

In 2023, Lively was honoured by the introduction of a rose with her namesake: Penelope Lively Rose. Lively has written, “The two central activities in my life – alongside writing – have been reading and gardening.” The aroma of the rose is described as medium-strong, old rose and fruity.

Books