Lionel Shriver Biography and latest books by Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver is an American journalist and author of the controversial work We Need to Talk About Kevin. The book was also made into a movie by the same name.

Lionel Shriver was named Margaret Ann Shriver on May 18, 1957 in North Carolina, to a religious family. When she was 15, she changed her first name to Lionel because as a tomboy she felt that a conventionally male name suited her better. She studied at Barnard College, Columbia University. She has lived in Nairobi, Bangkok and Belfast, but currently lives in London.

Shriver penned seven novels out of which six were published before she met huge success with We Need to Talk About Kevin. She called this book her "make or break" novel because she faced "professional disappointment" and "virtual obscurity". In this book she chose to omit traditionally sympathetic characters and write about characters that were "hard to love."

Shriver was awarded the 2005 Orange Prize for her eighth published novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin that is a study of maternal ambivalence, and the role it played in the protagonist\'s decision to murder nine people at high school. The book created uproar and achieved success through word of mouth.

Speaking about the book, Shriver states, “I’m often asked did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin. The truth is there’s nothing special about Kevin. The other books are good too. It just tripped over an issue that was just ripe for exploration and by some miracle found its audience.”

In her other book So Much for That, Shriver criticized the US health care system.