Her novels include The Grass Is Singing The Grass Is Singing is the first novel, published in 1950, by British Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing. It takes place in Southern Rhodesia, in southern Africa, during the 1940s and deals with the racial politics between whites and blacks in that country. The novel created a sensation whe…The Grass Is Singing
Children of Violence
The Children of Violence is a series of five semi-autobiographical novels by British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing: Martha Quest, A Proper Marriage, A Ripple from the Storm, Landlocked, and The Four-Gated City.
The Golden Notebook
The Golden Notebook is a 1962 novel by Doris Lessing. It, like the two books that followed it, enters the realm of what Margaret Drabble in The Oxford Companion to English Literature called Lessing's "inner space fiction"; her work that explores mental and societal breakdown. It cont…
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What books has Doris Lessing written?
The Golden Notebook1962The Grass Is Singing1950The Fifth Child1988Through the Tunnel1955The Grandmot... Four Short...2003Collected Stories1978Doris Lessing/Books
What type of writer is Doris Lessing?
Doris Lessing, in full Doris May Lessing, original name Doris May Tayler, (born October 22, 1919, Kermānshāh, Persia [now Iran]—died November 17, 2013, London, England), British writer whose novels and short stories are largely concerned with people involved in the social and political upheavals of the 20th century.
What are some of the fundamental themes in Doris Lessing's work?
Yet the series attracted a new audience of sciencefiction readers, and, taken as a whole, the series continues Lessing's themes: the individual versus the collective, political systems and their interference with racial and sexual equality, the interconnectedness of all life, and the need for a more enlightened ...
What was Doris Lessing's original name?
Her characters have experienced her experiences; they know what she knows. The daughter of an English banker, Doris May Taylor was born in Kermanshah, Persia, on October 22, 1919. In 1925 the Taylor family moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to a farm 100 miles west of Mozambique.
What was Doris Lessing known for?
Doris Lessing, the uninhibited and outspoken novelist who won the 2007 Nobel Prize for a lifetime of writing that shattered convention, both social and artistic, died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 94. Her death was confirmed by her publisher, HarperCollins.
What is Doris Lessing's best book?
The Golden Notebook1962The Grass Is Singing1950The Fifth Child1988Through the Tunnel1955The Grandmot... Four Short...2003Collected Stories1978Doris Lessing/Books
What is alienation literature?
Alienation is the result of loss of identity. The dispossessed personality's search for identity is a common place theme in modern fiction. Man fails to perceive today the very purpose behind life and the relevance of his existence in a hostile world.
What did Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for?
The British author Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel prize for literature. Lessing, who is only the 11th woman to win literature's most prestigious prize in its 106-year history, is best known for her 1962 postmodern feminist masterpiece, The Golden Notebook.
What is the message of the Antheap?
The story explores themes of friendship, justice, and freedom, aiming never to underestimate the difficulties involved in a relationship that transgresses social codes.
What is the meaning of Lessing?
someone who writes plays. English author of novels and short stories who grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) (born in 1919) synonyms: Doris Lessing, Doris May Lessing. example of: author, writer. writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay)
Who is the only Australian to win a Nobel Prize for literature?
Australian Patrick WhiteThe Australian Patrick White has been awarded the 1973 Nobel Literature Prize “for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature”, as it says in the Swedish Academy's citation.
Is Doris Lessing a feminist?
Many call Doris Lessing a feminist icon — a characterization the author rejected as "stupid." In the course of a long and eventful life, author Doris Lessing was many things. She was a mother — and a self-described "house mother" for a procession of starving artists, writers and political refugees.
Is Doris Lessing a feminist?
Many call Doris Lessing a feminist icon — a characterization the author rejected as "stupid." In the course of a long and eventful life, author Doris Lessing was many things. She was a mother — and a self-described "house mother" for a procession of starving artists, writers and political refugees.
What type of fiction does Margaret Atwood write?
Margaret AtwoodMargaret Atwood CC OOnt CH FRSC FRSLPeriod1961–presentGenreHistorical fiction speculative fiction climate fiction dystopian fictionNotable worksSurfacing (1972) The Handmaid's Tale (1985) Cat's Eye (1988) Alias Grace (1996) The Blind Assassin (2000) Oryx and Crake (2003) The Testaments (2019)11 more rows
What is the meaning of Lessing?
someone who writes plays. English author of novels and short stories who grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) (born in 1919) synonyms: Doris Lessing, Doris May Lessing. example of: author, writer. writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay)
Who influenced Doris Lessing?
Virginia WoolfJean‑Paul SartreFyodor DostoevskySimone de BeauvoirMikhail BulgakovStendhalDoris Lessing/Influenced by
Where was Doris Lessing born?
Biography. Doris Lessing was born in Persia (present-day Iran) to British parents in 1919. Her family then moved to Southern Africa, where she spent her childhood on her father's farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). When her second marriage ended in 1949, she moved to London, where her first novel, The Grass is Singing, ...
Who was Doris Lessing before The Golden Notebook?
Byatt, of Angela Carter and Graham Swift, this is because of the seeds sown by Lessing. However Doris Lessing was a novelist long before The Golden Notebook, and there is an argument for her early works being her best.
What book did Lessing write in 2001?
This suspicion of ideology, which so incensed many radicals, is to the fore in the great, late novel The Sweetest Dream (2001), which replaced Lessing’s third volume of autobiography, and which saw reviewers compare her to Balzac and George Eliot.
When did Doris Lessing win the Nobel Prize?
When Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, it seemed that, at last, the highest literary honour was being placed on a woman who has surveyed and judged mankind in the latter half of the 20th century like no other writer.
When did Lessing write Under My Skin?
The acclaimed first volume of her autobiography, Under My Skin (1994) , won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for biography), and was followed by a second volume, Walking in the Shade: Volume II of My Autobiography 1949-1962 (1997). Lessing's later fiction includes Ben, in the World (2000), a sequel to the The Fifth Child;
When did Lessing's second marriage end?
When her second marriage ended in 1949, she moved to London, where her first novel, The Grass is Singing, was published in 1950. The book explores the complacency and shallowness of white colonial society in Southern Africa and established Lessing as a talented young novelist.
Who published the diary of a good neighbor?
A crafty experiment resulted in Diary of a Good Neighbour (1983) and its successor If the Old Could (1984), published under the name of Jane Somers. She wanted the fiction to be judged on its own terms; one reviewer said the style reminded them of the young Doris Lessing.
Who is Doris Lessing?
Doris Lessing, in full Doris May Lessing, original name Doris May Tayler, (born October 22, 1919, Kermānshāh, Persia [now Iran]—died November 17, 2013, London, England), British writer whose novels and short stories are largely concerned with people involved in the social and political upheavals of the 20th century. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.
What is Lessing's first book?
Her first published book, The Grass Is Singing (1950), is about a white farmer and his wife and their African servant in Rhodesia. Among her most substantial works is the series Children of Violence (1952–69), a five-novel sequence that centres on Martha Quest, who grows up in southern Africa and settles in England. The Golden Notebook (1962), in which a woman writer attempts to come to terms with the life of her times through her art, is one of the most complex and the most widely read of her novels. The Memoirs of a Survivor (1975) is a prophetic fantasy that explores psychological and social breakdown. A master of the short story, Lessing has published several collections, including The Story of a Non-Marrying Man (1972) and Stories (1978); her African stories are collected in This Was the Old Chief’s Country (1951) and The Sun Between Their Feet (1973).
What is the name of the book that the women of history wrote about their lives?
Her first published book, The Grass Is Singing (1950), is about a white farmer and his wife and their African servant in Rhodesia.
When did the book Under My Skin come out?
In 1994 she published the first volume of an autobiography, Under My Skin; a second volume, Walking in the Shade, appeared in 1997. Britannica Explores. 100 Women Trailblazers. Meet extraordinary women who dared to bring gender equality and other issues to the forefront.
The Grass Is Singing
Doris Lessing's first novel, The Grass Is Singing, (1950) is set in Lessing's native Zimbabwe and tells the story of a woman murdered by her African houseboy, which news outlets falsely interpret as a robbery gone wrong.
The Children of Violence Series
Children of Violence (1952–1969), by Doris Lessing, is a four-part semi-autobiographical novel charting the experience, from youth to middle age, of Martha Quest. Set in Africa and London, the novels follow Martha as she navigates girlhood in Rhodesia, her marriage and children, and her life in London.
The Golden Notebook
Known as Lessing's greatest work, The Golden Notebook (1962) is built from disparate parts.
The Canopus in Argos Series
Lessing's Canopus in Argos series (1979–1983) is a multi-part series set entirely in the future, and most of it in space after the fall of civilization on earth brought on by WWIII. Through the course of several books, the series explores human and societal evolution.
Under My Skin
Under My Skin (1994) is the first volume of Doris Lessing's autobiography, charting her childhood in Rhodesia and her growth as a writer.
When did Doris Lessing start writing?
During her years of activism and married life, Doris Lessing began writing. In 1949, after two failed marriages, Lessing moved to London; her brother, first husband, and two children from her first marriage remained in Africa.
What was Doris Lessing's main interest in the 1980s?
Politically, in the 1980s she supported the anti-Soviet mujahideen in Afghanistan. She also became interested in issues ecological survival and returned to African themes.
Where was Doris Lessing born?
Doris Lessing Biography: Doris Lessing was born in Persia (now Iran), when her father worked for a bank. In 1924, the family moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she grew up, as her father tried to make a living as a farmer.
What was Lessing's role in the 1960s?
Having rejected communism in 1956, Lessing became active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In the 1960s, she became skeptical of progressive movements and more interested in Sufism and "nonlinear thinking."
When did Doris Lessing return to Zimbabwe?
After the country became Zimbabwe in 1980, independent of British and white rule, Doris Lessing returned, first in 1982.
What was Lessing's first book?
In 1950, Lessing's first novel was published: The Grass Is Singing, which dealt with issues of apartheid and interracial relationships in a colonial society. She continued her semi-autobiographical writings in three Children of Violence novels, with Martha Quest as the main character, published in 1952-1958.
Was Doris Lessing a communist?
Her second husband was a Communist, whom Doris Lessing met when she also became a Communist, joining what she saw as a more "pure form" of Communism than she saw in the Communist parties in other parts of the world. (Lessing rejected Communism after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.)
Where was Doris Lessing born?from literature.britishcouncil.org
Biography. Doris Lessing was born in Persia (present-day Iran) to British parents in 1919. Her family then moved to Southern Africa, where she spent her childhood on her father's farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). When her second marriage ended in 1949, she moved to London, where her first novel, The Grass is Singing, ...
Who was Doris Lessing before The Golden Notebook?from literature.britishcouncil.org
Byatt, of Angela Carter and Graham Swift, this is because of the seeds sown by Lessing. However Doris Lessing was a novelist long before The Golden Notebook, and there is an argument for her early works being her best.
What book did Lessing write in 2001?from literature.britishcouncil.org
This suspicion of ideology, which so incensed many radicals, is to the fore in the great, late novel The Sweetest Dream (2001), which replaced Lessing’s third volume of autobiography, and which saw reviewers compare her to Balzac and George Eliot.
When did Doris Lessing win the Nobel Prize?from literature.britishcouncil.org
When Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, it seemed that, at last, the highest literary honour was being placed on a woman who has surveyed and judged mankind in the latter half of the 20th century like no other writer.
When did Lessing write Under My Skin?from literature.britishcouncil.org
The acclaimed first volume of her autobiography, Under My Skin (1994) , won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for biography), and was followed by a second volume, Walking in the Shade: Volume II of My Autobiography 1949-1962 (1997). Lessing's later fiction includes Ben, in the World (2000), a sequel to the The Fifth Child;
When did Lessing's second marriage end?from literature.britishcouncil.org
When her second marriage ended in 1949, she moved to London, where her first novel, The Grass is Singing, was published in 1950. The book explores the complacency and shallowness of white colonial society in Southern Africa and established Lessing as a talented young novelist.
Who published the diary of a good neighbor?from literature.britishcouncil.org
A crafty experiment resulted in Diary of a Good Neighbour (1983) and its successor If the Old Could (1984), published under the name of Jane Somers. She wanted the fiction to be judged on its own terms; one reviewer said the style reminded them of the young Doris Lessing.
Who was Doris Lessing?
Alfred’s leg was amputated during his WWI service; he was employed as a clerk for the Imperial Bank of Persia. In 1925, the family shifted to Southern Rhodesia, then a British colony, where they farmed on a land owned by Alfred.
Who was Lessing's husband?
Lessing was attracted to the Left Book Club, a Socialist publishing club. She joined the group, married and later divorced her second husband Gottfried Lessing. She shifted to London with her son, Peter. Her first novel, ‘The Grass Is Singing’, was published in 1950.
How many children did Lessing have?
Lessing had two children from her first husband Frank Wisdom – John and Jean.
What is Lessing's Golden Notebook?
Major Works. Lessing’s 1962 novel, ‘The Golden Notebook’, is an anti-war and anti-Stalinist statement, and scrutinizes the women's liberation movements. Included to TIME’s 100 best English-language novels list, this masterpiece was translated to many languages.
Where did Doris go to school?
Doris attended the Dominican Convent High School, a Roman Catholic school in Salisbury until she was fourteen. She began to work as a nursemaid, and would read any material that her employer gave her.
How many children of violence books did Martha Quest write?
From 1952 to 1969, she penned a series of five novels –‘Children of Violence’, depicting its protagonist, Martha Quest’s life time from a rebellious teenager to an active independent old woman.
