President’s book lauded as highlight of 2013

Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life traces the life of the late-blooming, Booker-Prize-winning author of modern classics including Offshore and The Blue Flower. In the book, Hermione Lee recounts Fitzgerald's unusual childhood, success at Oxford, a “bleak, difficult and dangerous” time in a Thames houseboat, and her achievements in her 70s and 80s.

Hermione Lee's book has been met with widespread praise and appears in the Sunday Times, Guardian, and Observer 2013 Books of the Year lists. Robert Collins, of the Sunday Times, writes: ‘With this superb, painstaking study of Penelope Fitzgerald’ Lee here combines a deft light touch of humanity with her peerless critical eye to bring this British literary treasure back into the limelight.'

In her role as Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, Hermione Lee shares her knowledge as an experienced biographer with members of the Cluster, both in and outside the College. OCLW runs events and disseminates research for scholars and practitioners involved in all areas of life-writing.

Reviews of Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life

Guardian review

Telegraph review

The Sunday Times review (behind paywall)

Spectator review

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