Congratulations, Mrs. Lessing

Lessing wins Nobel prize for literature
By Peter Aspden

Published: October 12 2007 03:00

Doris Lessing, the prolific English novelist who crafted her reputation as a critic of colonial African society and whose career has spanned an occasionally bewildering range of styles and genres, has been awarded the Nobel prize for literature at the age of 87.

The Swedish Academy yesterday described Ms. Lessing as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

She is the 11th woman to receive the literature prize since its inception in 1901, and the 34th woman Nobel laureate across all categories.

Ms. Lessing is best known for her series of novels Children of Violence, written in the 1950s and featuring her heroine Martha Quest, whose growth in consciousness reflected the author's concerns over social justice.

Her first, semi-autobiographical novel, The Grass is Singing, addressed the culture clashes and racial discrimination she encountered during her childhood in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where she moved with her parents at the age of six.

Ms. Lessing, born in Persia, now Iran, left school at the age of 14 and went on to work as a nanny, telephonist, office worker and stenographer before having several short stories published.

In 1939 she married Frank Charles Wisdom, with whom she had a son and a daughter. The couple divorced in 1943 and two years later she married Gottfried Lessing, whom she had met in a Marxist group and with whom she had a son.

She moved to Britain in 1949, joined the British Communist party and became a fierce critic of the South African regime.

In 1956, Ms. Lessing was declared a prohibited alien in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, a ban that was lifted in 1995.

In the 1960s the author broke new ground with The Golden Notebook, which examined the multiple aspects of the life of a woman, Anna Wulf, in an experimental style. The burgeoning feminist movement regarded it as a pioneering work.

Ms. Lessing went on to experiment with a variety of styles. Her Briefing for a Descent into Hell in 1971 was described by the author as "inner space fiction", while her series Canopus in Argos: Archives was a post-nuclear study in science fiction.

She was attacked for being "unfeminine" in her work, to which she replied: "Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise."

In The Good Terrorist of 1985, she satirised the contemporary left and the novel's female protagonist, for her misguided martyrdom.

The Fifth Child, written in 1988, was a psychological thriller in which a woman's aggression against family life was incarnated in a monstrous boy child.

Ms Lessing was appointed a companion of honour in 1999, having turned down the offer of becoming a dame of the British empire, because she said there was no British empire.

Her most recent novel, The Cleft, was published in January by Fourth Estate to mixed reviews.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007