Lionel Shriver

Journalist and author Lionel Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver in 1957 in North Carolina, USA. She changed her name to Lionel at the age of 15 because she wanted to distance herself from the "girl with the pink ribbons in her hair, who married her high-school sweetheart and became an apple-cheeked housewife" that she felt was implied by the name Margaret Ann and the expectations of her family.

She received a BA and MFA from Columbia University and, since then, has lived in Nairobi, Bangkok, Belfast (where she reported on the Troubles for 12 years) and London.

Her first novel, The Female of the Species, was published when she was 29 (1986), and was followed by Checker and the Derailleurs (1987), Ordinary Decent Criminals (1990), Game Control (1994), A Perfectly Good Family (1996) and Double Fault (1997).

Although her earlier books received good reviews, sales did not follow, and she supported herself through journalism. Things changed with the publication of We Need To Talk About Kevin (2003) in which a teenager murders his classmates in a school shooting and a mother is forced to confront her son's monstrous act and her role in them. We Need To Talk About Kevin was rejected outright by her agent, so Shriver had to shop it around on her own. Eight months later, having found a new agent and been rejected by at least 30 publishers, the novel was picked up by a small publishing company. It went on to receive significant public recognition and won the 2005 Orange Prize. Publishers Weekly said, "A number of fictional attempts have been made to portray what might lead a teenager to kill a number of schoolmates or teachers, Columbine style, but Shriver's is the most triumphantly accomplished by far."