Lessing was born in 1919 in Persia, present day Iran, to British parents, and she was raised in Rhodesia, present day Zimbabwe. She has lived in England since 1937. She is the author of works like The grass is singing (1950), The golden notebook (1962), London observed: stories and sketches (1992) and many others which have made her deserving of a great number of awards, including the Medici Award and the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters.

The writer won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007 for being an “epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." Only 11 women have won this award since it was established in 1901.

Her contact with Africa and the deep love she felt for that land constituted the narrative material for some of her novels. In The grass is singing, an acclaimed novel about life in Africa, she reveals her opposition to the racial policy at a time when the topic was not well-received in England. Thanks to that novel, she was able to open her way to the literary world of the 1950s, while establishing her image as a firm detractor of racial segregation in South Africa.

In the five novels that comprise the series The children of violence, she unfolds the life of the leading character, Martha Quest: in the racial and social backdrop of South Africa, her efforts to break away from the family circle; the falling apart of her first marriage; her activities in the continent’s leftist politics; to her return to England in the last novel of the series, where Martha Quest finds herself involved in the social events in her country. The five novels of this cycle are entitled Martha Quest (1952), A proper marriage (1954), Landlocked (1965), A ripple from the storm (1958) and The four-gated city (1969).

Perhaps Lessing’s most appreciated work is The golden notebook, where she tells the experience of a successful writer who keeps a personal diary. This work catapulted her to fame, making her an icon for feminist demands; however, the author has always tried to distance herself from that movement.

She has written other prominent works including Going home (1957), where she denounces racial segregation in South Africa and The good terrorist (1985), where the main characters are a group of young extreme left revolutionaries. The British author’s latest work is The cleft (2007), a science fiction novel in which Lessing imagines what happens when men appear in a mythical world inhabited only by women.

Sources:

• BBC World

• Official website for the Nobel Foundation

• Doris Lessing’s website

More information:

• Check for the availability of publications at the Mediateca Casa África