Fitzgerald, Penelope (Mary) (1916-2000)

English novelist. She published her first novel, The Golden Child (1977), when she was 61. Since then she has applied a distinctive, economic style, an understanding of human nature, and a sense of humour to a variety of situations and settings. Particularly notable novels are Offshore (1979), which won the Booker Prize for fiction, The Gate of Angels (1990), and The Blue Flower (1995). A volume of short stories, The Means of Escape, was published posthumously in 2000.

She was born in Lincoln, the daughter of E V Knox, whose biography, with his three brothers, she published in 1977. She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford.