more photos (4)

Doris Lessing’s Followers (3,126)

Doris Lessing

Born

in Kermanshah, Iran

October 22, 1919

Died

November 17, 2013

Website

http://www.dorislessing.org

Genre

Fiction

Influences

Virginia Woolf, Idries Shah, Simone de Beauvoir, Olive Schreiner, Jean ...more

edit data

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

Combine Editions
Doris Lessing’s books

Average rating: 3.68 · 207,779 ratings · 17,775 reviews · 467 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Golden Notebook 3.77 avg rating — 24,371 ratings — published 1962 — 226 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fifth Child 3.64 avg rating — 23,869 ratings — published 1988 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Grass Is Singing 3.83 avg rating — 14,895 ratings — published 1950 — 152 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Good Terrorist 3.68 avg rating — 4,472 ratings — published 1985 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Grandmothers 3.49 avg rating — 3,803 ratings — published 2003 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Memoirs of a Survivor 3.58 avg rating — 3,539 ratings — published 1974 — 89 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Prisons We Choose to Live Inside 3.90 avg rating — 2,943 ratings — published 1986 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cleft 2.93 avg rating — 3,640 ratings — published 2007 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Summer Before the Dark 3.60 avg rating — 2,851 ratings — published 1973 — 92 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (Canopus in Argos, #1) 3.65 avg rating — 2,780 ratings — published 1979 — 65 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Doris Lessing…

Series by Doris Lessing

Ben Lovatt (2 books)
by

Doris Lessing

3.61 avg rating — 26,068 ratings

Canopus in Argos (5 books)
by

Doris Lessing

3.83 avg rating — 6,547 ratings

Children of Violence (5 books)
by

Doris Lessing

3.91 avg rating — 6,093 ratings

Mara and Dann (2 books)
by

Doris Lessing

3.79 avg rating — 2,373 ratings

Doris Lessing's autobiography (2 books)
by

Doris Lessing

4.06 avg rating — 1,265 ratings

More series by Doris Lessing…

Hanya Yanagihara’s latest novel is actually three tales of New York. In To Paradise, the highly acclaimed author of A Little Life and The...

Polls

The best winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Han Kang (2024)

27 votes, 6.9%

Sully Prudhomme (1901)

21 votes, 5.4%

Jon Fosse (2023)

15 votes, 3.8%

Gabriel García Márquez (1982)

14 votes, 3.6%

Toni Morrison (1993)

12 votes, 3.1%

Annie Ernaux (2022)

12 votes, 3.1%

José Saramago (1998)

11 votes, 2.8%

Bob Dylan (2016)

11 votes, 2.8%

Orhan Pamuk (2006)

10 votes, 2.6%

Kazuo Ishiguro (2017)

10 votes, 2.6%

Rudyard Kipling (1907)

9 votes, 2.3%

Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea) (1954)

9 votes, 2.3%

Albert Camus (1957)

9 votes, 2.3%

Jean-Paul Sartre (1964)

8 votes, 2.0%

Samuel Beckett (1969)

8 votes, 2.0%

Olga Tokarczuk (2018)

8 votes, 2.0%

George Bernard Shaw (1925)

7 votes, 1.8%

John Steinbeck (1962)

7 votes, 1.8%

Seamus Heaney (1995)

6 votes, 1.5%

Louise Glück (2020)

6 votes, 1.5%

Theodor Mommsen (A History of Rome) (1902)

5 votes, 1.3%

Henri Bergson (1927)

5 votes, 1.3%

Elfriede Jelinek (2004)

5 votes, 1.3%

Abdulrazak Gurnah (2021)

5 votes, 1.3%

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905)

4 votes, 1.0%

Romain Rolland (1915)

4 votes, 1.0%

W.B. Yeats (1923)

4 votes, 1.0%

Thomas Mann (Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family) (1929)

4 votes, 1.0%

T.S. Eliot (1948)

4 votes, 1.0%

Odysseas Elytis (1979)

4 votes, 1.0%

Naguib Mahfouz (1988)

4 votes, 1.0%

Gao Xingjian (2000)

4 votes, 1.0%

Svetlana Alexievich (2015)

4 votes, 1.0%

Selma Lagerlöf (1909)

3 votes, 0.8%

Rabindranath Tagore (1913)

3 votes, 0.8%

Sigrid Undset (1928)

3 votes, 0.8%

Hermann Hesse (1946)

3 votes, 0.8%

William Faulkner (1949)

3 votes, 0.8%

Bertrand Russell (1950)

3 votes, 0.8%

Yasunari Kawabata (1968)

3 votes, 0.8%

Patrick White (1973)

3 votes, 0.8%

Saul Bellow (1976)

3 votes, 0.8%

Joseph Brodsky (1987)

3 votes, 0.8%

Peter Handke (2019)

3 votes, 0.8%

Giosuè Carducci (1906)

2 votes, 0.5%

Maurice Maeterlinck (1911)

2 votes, 0.5%

Karl Gjellerup (1917)

2 votes, 0.5%

Henrik Pontoppidan (1917)

2 votes, 0.5%

Anatole France (1921)

2 votes, 0.5%

Jacinto Benavente (1922)

2 votes, 0.5%

Sinclair Lewis (1930)

2 votes, 0.5%

Luigi Pirandello (1934)

2 votes, 0.5%

Winston Churchill (1953)

2 votes, 0.5%

Halldór Laxness (1955)

2 votes, 0.5%

Juan Ramón Jiménez (1956)

2 votes, 0.5%

Boris Pasternak (1958)

2 votes, 0.5%

Ivo Andrić (1961)

2 votes, 0.5%

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970)

2 votes, 0.5%

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978)

2 votes, 0.5%

Jaroslav Seifert (1984)

2 votes, 0.5%

Derek Walcott (1992)

2 votes, 0.5%

Wisława Szymborska (1996)

2 votes, 0.5%

Günter Grass (1999)

2 votes, 0.5%

Herta Müller (2009)

2 votes, 0.5%

Mario Vargas Llosa (2010)

2 votes, 0.5%

Alice Munro (2013)

2 votes, 0.5%

Patrick Modiano (2014)

2 votes, 0.5%

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903)

1 vote, 0.3%

Frédéric Mistral (1904)

1 vote, 0.3%

José Echegaray (1904)

1 vote, 0.3%

Paul Heyse (1910)

1 vote, 0.3%

Carl Spitteler (Olympian Spring) (1919)

1 vote, 0.3%

Knut Hamsun (Growth of the Soil) (1920)

1 vote, 0.3%

Władysław Stanisław Reymont (The Peasants) (1924)

1 vote, 0.3%

Grazia Deledda (1926)

1 vote, 0.3%

Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1931)

1 vote, 0.3%

John Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga) (1932)

1 vote, 0.3%

Roger Martin du Gard (The Thibaults) (1937)

1 vote, 0.3%

Pearl S. Buck (1938)

1 vote, 0.3%

Frans Emil Sillanpää (1939)

1 vote, 0.3%

Johannes V. Jensen (1944)

1 vote, 0.3%

Gabriela Mistral (1945)

1 vote, 0.3%

André Gide (1947)

1 vote, 0.3%

Pär Lagerkvist (1951)

1 vote, 0.3%

François Mauriac (1952)

1 vote, 0.3%

Salvatore Quasimodo (1959)

1 vote, 0.3%

George Seferis (1963)

1 vote, 0.3%

Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967)

1 vote, 0.3%

Pablo Neruda (1971)

1 vote, 0.3%

Eyvind Johnson (1974)

1 vote, 0.3%

Harry Martinson (1974)

1 vote, 0.3%

Eugenio Montale (1975)

1 vote, 0.3%

Czesław Miłosz (1980)

1 vote, 0.3%

Elias Canetti (1981)

1 vote, 0.3%

William Golding (1983)

1 vote, 0.3%

Claude Simon (1985)

1 vote, 0.3%

Octavio Paz (1990)

1 vote, 0.3%

Kenzaburō Ōe (1994)

1 vote, 0.3%

V.S. Naipaul (2001)

1 vote, 0.3%

Imre Kertész (2002)

1 vote, 0.3%

J.M. Coetzee (2003)

1 vote, 0.3%

Doris Lessing (2007)

1 vote, 0.3%

Tomas Tranströmer (2011)

1 vote, 0.3%

Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1908)

0 votes, 0.0%

Gerhart Hauptmann (1912)

0 votes, 0.0%

Verner von Heidenstam (1916)

0 votes, 0.0%

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1933)

0 votes, 0.0%

Eugene O'Neill (1936)

0 votes, 0.0%

Saint-John Perse (1960)

0 votes, 0.0%

Mikhail Sholokhov (And Quiet Flows the Don) (1965)

0 votes, 0.0%

S.Y. Agnon (1966)

0 votes, 0.0%

Nelly Sachs (1966)

0 votes, 0.0%

Heinrich Böll (1972)

0 votes, 0.0%

Vicente Aleixandre (1977)

0 votes, 0.0%

Wole Soyinka (1986)

0 votes, 0.0%

Camilo José Cela (1989)

0 votes, 0.0%

Nadine Gordimer (1991)

0 votes, 0.0%

Dario Fo (1997)

0 votes, 0.0%

Harold Pinter (2005)

0 votes, 0.0%

J.M.G. Le Clézio (2008)

0 votes, 0.0%

Mo Yan (2012)

0 votes, 0.0%

391 total votes

3 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Bright Young Things: The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing - February 2010 (Spoilers Likely)	12	176	Feb 17, 2010 09:13PM
Chicks On Lit: A to Z world wide travel through books.	45	125	Mar 24, 2010 07:00PM
Every one's Choice: A Tie for April	57	46	Apr 03, 2010 07:55AM
Book lovers : A-Z Challenge	48	271	Apr 14, 2010 05:59PM
The Sword and Laser: Books to avoid	37	332	Apr 30, 2010 07:30PM
The Book Challenge: Kuutar's challenges for 2010	24	86	Aug 31, 2010 05:33PM
SA Book & Challen...: 2010 A-Z Author Challenge	11	107	Sep 15, 2010 04:48PM
Knight-Reading: Reading Log Week of 9/27/10	3	12	Oct 04, 2010 04:48AM

More…

Doris Lessing’s Followers (3,126)

Doris Lessing

Combine EditionsDoris Lessing’s books

Series by Doris Lessing

Related News

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Doris Lessing’s books