Claudia was in Cairo as a war correspondent in 1941 On a trip to the front, she met a young tank officer, Tom, and they fell in love Their affair is remembered against the background of the desert campaign, the swimming pools and the nightclubs of Cairo, the Moon Tiger that burns beside their bed in the Winter Palace in Luxor Tom is killed and Claudia, pregnant, miscarries Now an old woman, she thinks of his 'picked off by history' as a young man Winner of the 1987 Booker Prize