Classic Author Focus: Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing


Although she was born in Iran (then Persia) and lived there until she was six, Doris Lessing is considered a British/Zimbabwean (then South Rhodesia) writer. She is known for epic novels about the human experience in the 20th century and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.



Her father left a job as a bank clerk in Persia and the family moved to South Rhodesia to farm maize, but the farm made little money. Lessing was educated first in a convent and then in a girl’s school but left school at 13 and was then self-educated. She joined the Communist Party as a young adult and was an active member until 1956, after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. She still remained an activist, though, against nuclear arms and apartheid. In 2015, a file was released from MI5 and MI6 showing that she had been under surveillance for 20 years.



Lessing began selling stories to magazines when she was 15. However, she was working as a telephone operator when she married Frank Wisdom, a civil servant, and had two children with him. This marriage ended in 1943. After the divorce, she met Gottfried Lessing, a political activist and diplomat, with whom she had another child. This marriage ended in 1949, after which she moved to London with her youngest child and left the other two with their father.



Her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, about relationships between Black and White people in Southern Rhodesia, was published in 1950. Her most celebrated work is The Golden Notebook, considered (by others but not her) a feminist classic, published in 1962. During her lifetime, she published more than 50 novels, some under a pseudonym. Her literary output falls into three stages, political and social, psychological, and what she called space fiction.



She had a stroke in the late 1990’s, which prevented her from traveling afterwards, although she lived more than 10 more years. She died at her home in London.



Dates: 1919-2013



Most popular works: The Golden Notebook, The Memoirs of a Survivor, The Good Terrorist, The Fifth Child



Other works: Canopus in Argos series, The Diary of a Good Neighbour, Five Short Novels, and many more



Reviews by members:




The Golden Notebook ( Jane ) ( Lynn ) ( magicandmystery )



The Good Terrorist ( a barmy bookworm )