| Abstract | Penelope Lively (1933-), the contemporary British writer, was first known mainly as a children's writer prior to her winning the 1987 Booker Prize with her widely praised novel Moon Tiger (1987). The Road to Lichfield, published in 1977, is her first adult novel which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Treasures of Time (1979), her second adult novel, was the winner of Great Britain's first National Book Award for fiction in 1980 and the Arts Council National Book Award. In her literary fictions, Lively interweaves the present and the past -- history, the public, collective past, and memory, the private and personal past -- together with the application of various narrative techniques, such as flashback, stream of consciousness, psychological time, etc. A predominant theme running through her literary world is her consistent focus on history. This essay intend to study Penelope Lively's understanding and interpretation of history, and draw this conclusion: Although a complete understanding of history is impossible, yet as we realize our subjectivity and misunderstanding of history we can try to understand it in a new way and integrate it into the present life.
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