Alumna Lionel Shriver Wins Orange Prize for Novel We Need to Talk About Kevin
 Alumna author Lionel Shriver has won the 2005 Orange Prize for her seventh novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin. The U.K.-based award is given each year to a female author writing in En glish. Shriver's book, written in the form of letters, follows a mother considering her shortcomings as a parent after her son, 15, kills seven fellow pupils.
Chair of judges Jenni Murray, who hosts BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, said the book would "resonate with everyone who has had a child or thought about having one. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a book that acknowledges what many women worry about but never express - the fear of becoming a mother and the terror of what kind of child one might bring into the world."
Shriver, 48, changed her name to Lionel from Margaret Ann at age 15 because she thought men had an easier life. Her previous six novels, written over the past twenty years, have been critical but not commercial successes. We Need to Talk About Kevin itself had a slow start but gathered momentum with word of mouth and has now made it on to Best Seller lists. Shriver shares her thoughts on writing and on winning a female-only prize in the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian [UK].
Also a journalist, Lionel Shriver has written for The Economist, the Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer , among other publications. She has lived in Nairobi, Bangkok and Belfast and now resides in London and New York with her husband, a jazz drummer.
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