British writer Doris Lessingwon the Nobel Literature Prize
Swedish Academy described Lessing as "that epicist of the female experience who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." Lessing has covered a multitude of topics.
Her "The Golden Notebook", is best known work elated her as a feminist icon back in 1962.Doris May Taylor born in Khermanshah, in what is now Iran, on October 22, 1919, Lessing spent her adolescent on a farm in Southern Rhodesia, what is now Zimbabwe, where her British parents moved in 1927, she later said, a "hellishly lonely" upbringing.
She married Frank Wisdom,in 1939 by whom she had two children before their divorce in 1943.
She then married a German political activist called Gottfried Lessing, but divorced again in 1949, when she fled to Britain with her young son and the manuscript of her first novel, "The Grass Is Singing."A searing examination of racial oppression and colonialism, it was published the following year to immediate success.
Her radical political affinities drew her into the British Communist Party, but she resigned in 1956 at the time of the Hungarian uprising, never to return.
Her works "Children of Violence" series of novels, published between 1952 and 1969 around a central character named Martha Quest, first established her credentials as both a writer and a feminist.
"I wasn't an active feminist in the 60s, never have been," she has since insisted. "I never liked the movement because it's too ideologically based. All sorts of claims were made for me that simply weren't true."
In the 1980s, with her popularity in brief decline, she decided to test the importance of a name in publishing, and submitted a novel under a pseudonym, only to find it rejected. It was later published, when she revealed her true identity.
She became an increasingly outspoken critic of Africa, particularly the corruption and embezzlement by governments, but was finally able to revisit south Africa in 1995, after the fall of apartheid.
Her novel "The Good Terrorist" (1985), about an immature young woman who joins a terrorist cell, has strong echoes today.
In recent years Lessing, who lives in the London suburb of Hampstead, has also written several works of science fiction.
She is also probably one of the oldest people anywhere to have her own page on the popular social networking web site MySpace.
On a recent visit the site announced, under the label "Female - 87 years old," that "Doris Lessing has 136 friends."
Her "The Golden Notebook", is best known work elated her as a feminist icon back in 1962.Doris May Taylor born in Khermanshah, in what is now Iran, on October 22, 1919, Lessing spent her adolescent on a farm in Southern Rhodesia, what is now Zimbabwe, where her British parents moved in 1927, she later said, a "hellishly lonely" upbringing.
She married Frank Wisdom,in 1939 by whom she had two children before their divorce in 1943.
She then married a German political activist called Gottfried Lessing, but divorced again in 1949, when she fled to Britain with her young son and the manuscript of her first novel, "The Grass Is Singing."A searing examination of racial oppression and colonialism, it was published the following year to immediate success.
Her radical political affinities drew her into the British Communist Party, but she resigned in 1956 at the time of the Hungarian uprising, never to return.
Her works "Children of Violence" series of novels, published between 1952 and 1969 around a central character named Martha Quest, first established her credentials as both a writer and a feminist.
"I wasn't an active feminist in the 60s, never have been," she has since insisted. "I never liked the movement because it's too ideologically based. All sorts of claims were made for me that simply weren't true."
In the 1980s, with her popularity in brief decline, she decided to test the importance of a name in publishing, and submitted a novel under a pseudonym, only to find it rejected. It was later published, when she revealed her true identity.
She became an increasingly outspoken critic of Africa, particularly the corruption and embezzlement by governments, but was finally able to revisit south Africa in 1995, after the fall of apartheid.
Her novel "The Good Terrorist" (1985), about an immature young woman who joins a terrorist cell, has strong echoes today.
In recent years Lessing, who lives in the London suburb of Hampstead, has also written several works of science fiction.
She is also probably one of the oldest people anywhere to have her own page on the popular social networking web site MySpace.
On a recent visit the site announced, under the label "Female - 87 years old," that "Doris Lessing has 136 friends."
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