Still Life

 

                       
Still Life

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Title
Still Life
Author A. S. Byatt
Genre Academic fiction, British literature, Coming-of-age fiction, Literary fiction
Format N/A

 

Book Description

Still Life is the second novel in A. S. Byatt’s Frederica Quartet. Set in postwar Britain, it follows Frederica Potter as a brilliant, restless Cambridge student grappling with intellectual ambition, emotional detachment, and the legacy of family life. Interwoven with close readings of poetry—especially Wordsworth—the novel explores how language, art, and education shape inner lives, balancing sharp realism with a deep engagement in literary thought.

 

About Author

A. S. Byatt (1936–2023), born Antonia Susan Drabble, was an acclaimed British novelist, short-story writer, and literary critic. Educated at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, she taught literature for many years while developing a body of fiction celebrated for its intellectual depth and stylistic range. Byatt achieved wide recognition with Possession: A Romance (1990), which won the Booker Prize and became her best-known work. Her writing often blends narrative with philosophy, myth, science, and art history, reflecting her belief in the pleasures of serious reading. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1999 for services to literature.

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