A poignant and bittersweet memoir from the distinguished British fiction writer Penelope Lively, Oleander, Jacaranda evokes the author's unusual childhood in Egypt during the 1930s and 1940s while exploring the nature of childhood perception. Oleander, Jacaranda is the ultimately heartbreaking story of a child, and then a young girl, whose parents spent little time with her. Readers of Penelope Lively's fiction will find that Oleander, Jacaranda opens a window onto the source of her most popular novel, Moon Tiger, and suggests what may have inspired the imaginary country of Callimbia in Cleopatra's Sister, her most recent novel.