Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived

by PenelopeLively (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.27

  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.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1994

  $3.27

  Using memories of her childhood among the privileged expatriate society of Egypt in the 1930s, Penelope Lively provides a slice of autobiography which is also an exploration of childhood perception. In snapshots of recollection, we build up a picture of her happy, self-absorbed early years in a familiar land of canals and palm-trees, mud-brick villages and water buffalo, under the ever-watchful and loving eye of her nanny, Lucy. Even World War II barely proved a disruption to an idyllic childhood which was shattered by adolescence and her parents' divorce. Penelope Lively's account of the childhood that has remained so vivid in her mind, and of the subsequent trauma when she was sent back to the homeland she had never regarded as home, stands as a poignant metaphor for all lost childhoods. She gives a fresh insight into how children perceive, and how we remember.