Moon Tiger (9780241973684) by Penelope Lively

Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying. But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world... and in the process, my own'. But Claudia's life is entwined with others and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak, to put across their point of view.