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⇱ Doris Lessing (Author of The Golden Notebook)

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Doris Lessing


Born
in Kermanshah, Iran
October 22, 1919

Died
November 17, 2013

Website

Genre

Influences


Doris Lessing was born into a colonial family. both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and later had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she fear Doris Lessing was born into a colonial family. both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and later had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.

During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.

In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.

In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.

She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

(Extracted from the pamphlet: A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin, HarperPerennial, 1995. Full text available on www.dorislessing.org). ...more

Average rating: 3.68 · 213,319 ratings · 18,496 reviews · 464 distinct works • Similar authors
👁 The Golden Notebook
3.77 avg rating — 24,923 ratings — published 1962 — 227 editions
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👁 The Fifth Child
3.65 avg rating — 25,222 ratings — published 1988 — 39 editions
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👁 The Grass Is Singing
3.83 avg rating — 15,351 ratings — published 1950 — 4 editions
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👁 The Good Terrorist
3.68 avg rating — 4,655 ratings — published 1985 — 31 editions
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👁 The Grandmothers
3.50 avg rating — 3,918 ratings — published 2003 — 23 editions
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👁 The Memoirs of a Survivor
3.58 avg rating — 3,648 ratings — published 1974 — 10 editions
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👁 Prisons We Choose to Live I...
3.90 avg rating — 3,098 ratings — 17 editions
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👁 The Cleft
2.93 avg rating — 3,716 ratings — published 2007 — 3 editions
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👁 The Summer Before the Dark
3.59 avg rating — 2,939 ratings — published 1973 — 2 editions
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👁 Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shi...
3.64 avg rating — 2,830 ratings — published 1979 — 65 editions
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More books by Doris Lessing…
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Quotes by Doris Lessing  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
“Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
― Doris Lessing

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

“What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.”
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

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