Mara and Dann

Mara and Dann #1

by Doris Lessing

Thousands of years in the future, all the northern hemisphere is buried under the ice and snow of a new Ice Age. At the southern end of a large landmass called Ifrik, two children of the Mahondi people, seven-year old Mara and her younger brother, Dann, are abducted from their home in the middle of the night. Raised as outsiders in a poor rural village, Mara and Dann learn to survive the hardships and dangers of a life threatened as much by an unforgiving climate and menacing animals as by a hostile community of Rock People. Eventually they join the great human migration North, away from the drought that is turning the southern land to dust, and in search of a place with enough water and food to support human life. Traveling across the continent, the siblings enter cities rife with crime, power struggles, and corruption, learning as much about human nature as about how societies function. With a clear-eyed vision of the human condition, Mara and Dann is imaginative fiction at its best.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Nobel Prize, Africa

407 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

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).

Reviews

[Marcy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doris Lessing's Mara and Dann was published several years ago; I wrote this review in 2008. Lately I've become obsessed with the book, thinking about it every time I hear about floods in Rhode Island unseen for 200 years; or see pictures on TV of high school kids in the Midwest piling up sandbags to hold back the river. Do people recognize what is happening? We just go on with our daily lives, oblivious to the upheavals all around us. At least read this book: Doris Lessing is a seer, and Mara and Dann will scare the pants off you!

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm freaking out. The floods in the Midwest and the fires in California have me thinking that the effects of global warming are no longer theoretical. Nor are they just a future possibility: it's happening. Things are happening to our planet that have never happened before.

Mara and Dann: An Adventure, is on one level an old-fashioned adventure tale. It begins in a far-distant future on the continent of Ifrik--Africa, the only continent not submerged in ice. The two main characters, a sister and brother, are rescued as children from warriors and raised by a kindly woman among the Rock People, whose tribal name reflects lives that are beyond difficult. Water dragons, scorpions, and beetles the size of dogs threaten human existence. There is never enough food or water, and people slit each other's throats for a piece of dried fruit. Dann leaves the village just as war and famine are forcing the Rock People to migrate North, but Mara remains to care for the old woman who raised them. Eventually Dann returns for Mara, and their journey North, the heart of the book, begins.

The siblings travel through drought-ridden towns, abandoned cities, military outposts, and apparently thriving regions that are in fact doomed. Their adventures are gripping, and make for a real page-turner. But Mara and Dann is, of course, more than an action-packed thriller: along the way the siblings learn lessons—always the substance of a Lessing story—about history, human nature, politics, and the prospects for a planetary future.

Although written in deceptively simple language, and without any of the political sermons for which Lessing is famous, Mara and Dann still manages to convey the messages she’s been putting out, like urgent SOS's, for decades: this is an uncontrollable, cataclysmic universe; human beings know less than nothing about the forces governing our circumstances; we fail to learn from history, and are therefore doomed to repeat it. In Mara and Dann we see the logical results of a world of displaced populations, who manage to go on believing everything will be fine despite all evidence to the contrary.

But the most important message of this Lessing SOS is, simply put, WEATHER RULES! Mara and Dann, along with the rest of the struggling population, can't do much else with their lives when they're at the mercy of one disaster after another. All their time and energy is spent coping with the upheavals of a planet that's doing pretty much what it’s doing now, only on an even grander scale. As icecaps melt and flood one area after another, populations of refugees move on, only to find various conditions inhospitable to life wherever they go.

After accompanying Mara and Dann through a myriad of harrowing experiences, we can’t help but hope for a happy ending as a payoff, even knowing it would be out of character for this author to deliver one. Yet Lessing does come close to a happily-ever-after of sorts—it’s just that the characters she’s invented could never be content with one. It turns out that what sustained and motivated them was the rigorous quest for survival, and the people they've become as a result of that quest could never be satisfied with something so simple as happiness, or even stability. The reader is left with the sense that "this too shall pass," that new ice formations will creep down and one day cover Ifrik, or will melt and flood the continent, or the drought below will sweep upwards, or... Whatever happens, all is transitory—individual lives, societies, the planet, and even the shape of this wild, predictably unpredictable universe. It’s not a pretty picture. As I said, I'm freaking out.

[Coquille Fleur · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just read this a month or so ago, and it has just become my favorite book. It's a post, post, post apocalypse novel about a brother and sister on a primitive journey of survival and a quest for the truth about the futuristic past they encounter in the ruins along the way. Their past is our distant future, which ends abruptly in an ice age that covers the Northern Hemisphere in ice in less than a century. Lessing creates powerful images of drought and a desperate stream of refugees outrunning the encroaching desertification of Southern Ifrik (our Africa). Here is a quote from pg. 260 that illustrates how powerful this novel is:

"And there was a time when women had one child after another and sometimes died young because of it, or were old at forty, but then they discovered some medicine or herb that stopped them having children..."
"What" said Mara. "What are you saying?"
She was staring, she was breathless.
"What's wrong, Mara?"
"I can't...I don't think I can take that in...do you mean to say...you're saying that those ancient women, if they took some drug, then they didn't have children?"
"Yes, It's in the Sand Records."
"That meant, those women then didn't have to be afraid of men?"
Shabis said, drily, "I haven't noticed your being afraid."
"You don't understand. Daima used to tell me and tell me until I sometimes got angry with her. Remember when you meet a man,he could make you pregnant. Think if you're in your fertile period and if you are be on your guard..."
"I cannot even begin to imagine what it could be like, being at ease when you meet a man. And then, when it suits you, at the time when you want it, you have a baby. They must have been quite different from us, those women in ancient times. So different..." She was silent, thinking, "they were free. We could never be free, in that way." Now she was remembering Kulik, how she had dodged and evaded and run away, and even had nightmares. Dreams of helplessness. That was the point. Being helpless."

Lessing's voice is heard loud and clear in this otherworld adventure story. Drug addiction, slavery, giant poisonous and carnivorous beasts await in the dry sands and in every turn of the river North. This is such an amazing story that I have re-read it a few times.

*Just re-read on Open Library and have to say this book holds up to re-reading again and again. If I were stuck on a desert island and could choose only one book to have with me, this would be the one! I can't stop thinking about it and I've read it like 5 times.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, first I must say that this book made me very thirsty.

With that out of the way, I enjoyed Mara and Dann, but not as much as I expected. Futuristic, dystopian, critically acclaimed author, poignant relationship between brother and sister struggling for survival - this book had all the right ingredients for me. I did enjoy it, I had fun and it was a page-turner, but I'm not inspired to read anything else by Lessing. Her writing style just isn't to my taste, I found it to be flat and a bit boring. Its usually easy for me to get emotionally involved with books, but nothing in this story grabbed me.

An interesting portrait of the possible future of humanity.

[Retniap · Rating 1 out of 5]

A bizarre, dull, long-winded tale about a brother and sister living in a post-apocalyptic era who gradually come to the realisation that they want to bang one another. I wish I was kidding... I really do.

[Jann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doris Lessing is a great writer. I had previously only read from her "communist period". This is a very unique story for her---set in the future, but not at all a sci-fi piece. I was deeply into the story from the first paragraph and had a hard time sleeping---I wanted to get back to the book. The author is exploring many themes, and radical ideas for her time. I wish everyone I knew had read it so we could discuss it!

[Carrie Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is there any book by Doris Lessing that is not worth reading..for some reason? I scoff at people who do not follow her down the different literary paths she has taken. Too many people want authors to only write what they want to read. Sometimes, we should read for what the author wants us to hear.

[Capella · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book- the concept ticked all my boxes but I couldn't get into it. It didn't move along at a logical pace, the characters weren't engaging, and I couldn't get a sense of the setting. It had so much potential..

[Jewell · Rating 5 out of 5]

for some reason I am obsessed with this book. my husband read it and thought it was just ok, and my brother read it and hated it?

[Zach · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot stand the way this book is written. I don't know if this is

1) Lessing's regular style
2) Because this book centers on children
3) Because it's supposed to feel like a folktale

or some combination of the above, but whatever the reason, it grates on me like you wouldn't believe. Like so, pages 31-32:

Suck, suck, suck. The sound was driving Mara quite wild with dislike of it, an irritation that made her want to hit her little brother, and she was ashamed of herself and began to cry. She had hardly cried all this time. Crying, she went to the enormous wooden chest. She could just lift the lid. [description of the fancy clothes inside...:] She stood by the big chest looking, and wanting, and crying, and listening to how her little brother sucked his thumb. Then Daima took the thumb out of Dann's mouth, and he turned his face into her neck and howled.

Mara thought, Poor Daima, with two crying children, and stopped crying.


Ugh. I struggled through 60 pages or so and that was that.

[Mark Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nightmarish but plausible dystopian vision that was written nearly twenty years ago but captures many of our current anxieties regarding climate change and the potential collapse of global civilization. Over the first half of the book there is a near constant atmosphere of menace and suspense and the narrative chugs along nicely. It becomes almost comically repetitive after the mid-way point, as the siblings encounter an endless succession of shifty innkeepers and their childhood nemesis leaps out from behind a dried-out bush for what feels like the twentieth time. You get the sense that Doris Lessing herself was struggling to sustain interest during some of the later sections, in which the exposition becomes increasingly clunky and the dialogue almost wince inducing. So, in summary, it was interesting at the beginning and increasingly uncomfortable as it went along, which is probably what the latter stages of the Anthropocene will be like.

[Mikael Kuoppala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doris Lessing takes us to a far-future, climate change devastated Africa in this lyrical sci-fi adventure about two siblings who struggle to survive as they travel across the continent to escape drought. On their travels they encounter different groups of people with various ways of living, through whom they get to observe the variety that is our race.

There are many wonderful post-apocalyptic tales out there and most of them concentrate mostly on the demise of everything we know. "Mara and Dann – An Adventure" goes further than that: humanity has been virtually destroyed, but after an undefined amount of time new civilizations are finally awaking from the ruins of the self-inflicted annihilation of our current one. The planet has been stripped of natural resources, which makes the emergence of societies different from how it went our time around.

Lessing has been dubbed a pessimist, and there is inherent pessimism also in this book. Famine, violence, hate and despair are present everywhere in the form of endless wars and cruelty in everyday interaction between people. But I think that "Mara and Dann" is first and foremost a story about hope. The whole concept here is based on the inherently hopeful assumption that if and when we cause the self-destruction of our modern society, there might still be something to salvage. The planet, maybe animals, maybe even some humans. Some say that perhaps the only way to achieve a stable world is for sentient life to first wastefully strip away all resources that threaten the survival of the planet. A culture with no ore to process has no means for achieving the technological advancement required for wiping out any species, let alone collapse the whole planetary ecosystem.

I really like the concept here, but somehow this piece doesn't fulfill its inherent potential.The microsocieties described are fascinating and it's clear that "Mara and Dann" is fundamentally a sociological examination if nothing else. Still, I was hoping for more on that front. All the various ways of life Lessing has imagined would have deserved a more thorough examination. And as with many of her books, the overall feel is slightly erratic and aimless, making me think the text should have been honed a bit more. Also, even as the novel is daring on the character level, I felt as if Mara as the point of view character of the book is left flat and too undefined; she’s heroic, and her hunger for knowledge is uplifting, but there is no depth beneath the heroism. If only she would come across as more real, the whole piece would feel more relevant. This especially as the supporting characters are left as minor players, most notably Dann, who is present so often you can’t help but notice his flatness. Maybe their vagueness is calculated, communicating the way the imagined future would shape its children, but from a dramatic standpoint that choice would not be good in any case.

“Mara and Dann” is imperfect, offering a lot but in a diluted form among all the sidesteps Lessing carries the reader through. Overall I felt that this book concentrated a bit too much on being- as the title announces- an adventure. Adventures can be wonderful literature, but this world would have been a better setting for a more directly cerebral tale.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What I learned from this book"? That I really don't want to die of starvation! This book is actually amazing; it takes place thousands of years in the future after the world's climate has been drastically affected by a new ice age, and people can only dream of civilization as complex as we know it today - they have lost the knowledge of most technology (though they are perfectly aware that it once existed) and the protagonists are desperate for any knowledge they can glean from still extant remnants of the past. The entire northern hemisphere has been covered by ice, and those in the southern part of Africa (called Ifrik in the book) are being forced northward by extreme drought. I don't know if I've ever read a book that so vividly describes peoples' will to survive. This book takes a lot of twists and turns, it truly is an adventure, and just as one twist starts to feel like it's lost me, everything becomes clear again. Everything that happens has a place and a reason in this book. It is a wonderful read, a true work of art, and I can't wait to read more Doris Lessing.

[Kristin Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the way Doris Lessing can skip through large periods of time seamlessly without announcing transitions. She does this masterfully in this story that follows a sister/brother duo through 20 years of their tumultuous lives. I picked this up in one of our neighborhood little free libraries, and had not read Lessing before so did not know what to expect. She takes her time with writing, even though she spans lengthy periods of time, she is not in a rush. She writes apocalyptically about a time 1,500 years in the future that comes across like an eery foreshadowing. There were times I found the story tiring, but this is in part due to the fact that Mara and Dann are on what feels like an endless, exhausting journey full of dangerous traps and foils. I felt a need to keep reading, quickly, to see them through to their safe landing. Ultimately, I really liked this book and am already missing it, as well as Mara and Dann. I will keep this book on my shelf simply to revisit her writing style.

[Christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite some obvious plot construction and notable supporting characters, by far one of the best stories I have ever read. It is compelling, well-built, coated in both historical and futuristic elements, with lovable characters (even if you actually hate them). This story pulls you in a world that could be ours one day, but still keeps close to the struggles of a young woman and her younger brother in a fascinating setting. I read this years ago, but I still remember the awe at every page turn. I highly recommend reading this!

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haven't read Lessing in years and remember why I like her so much. A dystopian novel that reads like
historical fiction. We accompany siblings Mara and Dan from childhood to adulthood as they struggle to leave the drought stricken southern hemisphere to the North where water is a plenty. We meet a range of new subspecies of humans, catch a glimpse of the world and its marvels that once was (today's world) and watch as climate change is reeking havoc on their world. Perhaps a little long, but otherwise a great read.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Classic Doris Lessing book - annoying privileged people having relationship/sex drama but this time to an apocalyptic backdrop.

I was disappointed because I like science-fantasy fiction but after a while it just lost momentum and into the same tone as The Golden Notebook, which I also despised.
After finishing Mara and Dann, I realised I'm not a fan of this author.

If you're looking for some feminist sci-fi, check out Marge Piercy. Not every book is amazing but Woman on The Edge of Time and He, She and It are great.
Also really recommend Octavia Butler's work!

[Ardra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm really enjoying this book. It takes place thousands of years in the future, and centers around a sister and brother who are trying to survive a major climate change (severe droughts). I hope I have time to finish this one before it's due!

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

An epic dystopian, tale. I really enjoyed this, it was hard to put down! Climate sci fi (cli-fi) at its best.

4.5 stars; the ending lost it half a star.

[Tyler Wanden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve grown quite familiar with post-apocalyptic stories in the past few years, and though they always entertain, the genre remains relatively the same. It’s true that humans have been discussing death and “the end of days” since basically the start of time, and it follows that our culture’s notion of the apocalypse is relatively uniform. Between books, movies, and videogames, there are a lot of stylistic differences with these depictions, but the story always feels the same. Man against the world.

What made this book feel so different from the other post-apocalyptic stories is that it isn’t man against the world. It’s brother and sister against the world. Mara, 7, and Dann, 4, are abducted from their village, told that they are the last of their people, and are forced to flee across the continent of Ifrik as a deadly drought turns the southern lands to dust. Mara and Dann are actually made up names, because the first scene in the book has their “captor” telling them that they must forget their true names so that these names can never be used against them in the future. These early scenes influence the kids, especially Dann, in subtle ways that show up later in the book at crucial moments.

The bond shared by these sibling protagonists is inspiring, to say the least. At the beginning of the book, it’s mature Mara who has to always keep an eye on Dann, reminding him about simple things like checking the pond for water dragons before taking a swim. As they both mature and endure numerous hardships, their relationship grows to a point where they rely on each other. Dann might get drafted into an army, or Mara might get stolen for “breeding” (not my term…) but they always end up reuniting. The entire time, their goal is to “go north” because as children they heard that things were more promising up there. They meet some interesting characters, find some interesting locations, but they never know when to settle down or when to accept that THIS town is the best bet. There’s always the possibility that things could be better up north, and so they chase this possibility for the duration of the book.

I really loved that theme of debating between settling or pushing forward- when should one be comfortable with what they have? How much better can things really get, and is it worth going through all the trouble to find out? The story of Mara and Dann tells me that there’s always something better ahead, if you’re willing to believe in it and work towards it. Dorris Lessing has established herself as one of my favorite authors because of her insight on “the human condition”- I don’t know of any other author who’s raised so many questions on the subject through fiction. This book reminded me a lot of The Sirian Experiments, another work by Dorris Lessing that focuses a lens on humanity (though that one featured aliens, rather than an “alternate society”).

This was a great book that I enjoyed the entire way through. Definitely four stars, arguably five. Lessing’s prose isn’t too complex and there aren’t many big fancy British words, but she manages to convey complex sentiments with this simple style. Here’s an example:

“How do you know all this?” asked one of the girls, and could not conceal her resentment. Mara knew this resentment well: it was what people feel when being asked to take in too much that threatens their idea of themselves, or their world.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a true-to-life story and a fable set it a futuristic dystopia; it a story of brutal realism and magical realism; a hero's journey story with a destination but no return; set in the distant future and at an earlier level of civilization; a story of sister and brother with no family; a story of privation and privilege. It is of course a Doris Lessing book, which means it is different from anything else you read.

The setting is Africa towards the end of the next Ice Age; Europe is a mostly forgotten legend and the high technology of the pre-Ice Age civilization (higher than our own) is largely lost. Climate change is transforming Africa in a drought-ridden, unlivable environment. Mara and Dann, young sister and brother, lose their family, given new names to hide their identities, and go to live with the Rock People (approximate location is Zambia). After an enormous trek, both in terms of distances and cultures, they end up in what is now Morocco about 15 years later. Since it is in the first sentence in the author's note at the beginning of the book, it is not a spoiler to mention that this is "a tale about a brother and a sister who had all kinds of adventures, suffered a hundred vicissitudes, and ended up living happily ever after." Although "100 visissitudes" does not really begin to describe it. And the "happy ending" arrives as promised but as a true-to-life thing with its own imperfections.

The sufferings range from floods and drought and famine and "water dragons"; to war; and religious cults; and gambling; and opium addiction; and slavery; and finally racism and hate and temptation. Europe (Yerupp) is covered in massive glaciers that reach the Mediterranean. Africa (Ifrix) is now suffered from climate change causing extreme heat and drought. Some old technology survives, but very little and mostly it is a lost memory. There are many messages embedded in the book: on social issues, gender issues, environmental issues, education, etc.; but they do not overpower the narrative. I was particularly intrigued by the "What Do You See" game for training children.

The story is intense and gripping at times, especially in the first half, but also meanders at times in the second half, losing its sense of direction as it gets to be less about the sister and brother, and more about cities and cultures. At times I was completely engrossed but at other times I worried if I could finish the book. In the end, the driving theme is Mara (the sister) and her fight to keep her brother Dann (who is badly flawed at times) safe and to stay together. This is what redeems the book.

[Guillermo Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pocas ocasiones tenemos para reflexionar lo que vemos. Contadas reparamos en cómo digerimos lo que consumimos. Sería injusto criticar la sobreinformación de los tiempos actuales (aunque es ineludible dejar de hablar de ella), sin embargo, no nos es ajeno que debemos detenernos minutos al día a pensar en el rumbo que llevamos de manera indivudual y de manera colectiva si queremos no persernos en el camino.

Hay quienes critican fuertemente la incursión de Doris Lessing en la SF (science-fiction)[Alejandro Martínez, por ejemplo], aunque sigo siendo firme en mi postura, los géneros (ya sean literarios o de cualquier otra disciplina) solo sirven en la medida que nos permiten realizar lecturas desde una perspectiva cerrada. Lo ideal, creo yo, es que tanto autor como lector manejen el mismo lenguaje para poder entonces comprender el universo creado en la obra literaria. Si el autor decide que ese lenguaje es el de un género con reglas, no creo que podamos exigirle que las respete, a menos, claro está, que seamos unos reduccionistas al purismo del género. Si Auster decide tomar elementos del policiaco, bien, que lo haga, pero no le pedimos que escriba al estilo de Chandler o Hammet. Si Lessing busca algo a través de la SF, por favor, no esperemos que sea Philip K. Dick o Theodore Sturgeon, de hecho, entre los mismos autores de SF existen divergencias en cuanto a las 'reglas' que deben seguirse.

Mara y Dann califica con el adjetivo de una novela de aventuras ubicada después de la próxima glaciación, 12'000 años después de una fecha cercana a la nuestra. Nos otorga la oportunidad de mostrarnos la ridículez con que perseguimos la perennidad en la actualidad, critica y ridiculiza los obstáculos que nos proponemos a diario y la mirada bélica de nuestro género.

Es una novela fundamental para salirnos de nosotros y asomarnos al exterior de cómo nos vemos, para repasar drásticamente que nuestras costumbres no tienen otro camino que llevarnos a la aniquilación, y que a pesar de esto, no importa, porque los ciclos de la naturaleza se encargaran de borrar de un plumazo todos nuestro 'logros' y 'avances': llegará un momento en que nadie sabrá como se hace el concreto o el acero.

Bien, Doris Lessing, bien.

[Amaha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Mara and Dann more than any book I've read in a long time. It took me a couple of attempts to start reading it because the beginning is a bit dark and disorienting. But when I finally pushed past the first section- which is better explained later and ends up being critical to subsequent developments- I was totally absorbed.

Mara and Dann tells the story of an orphaned girl and her brother in a distant future. Most of Earth is covered by ice and most technology and history have been forgotten, but remnants of the past, half-functional and rarely understood, are all around. As they grow up, the siblings traverse the African continent ("Ifrik") trying to find a better life and make sense of the remains of human civilization- but mostly trying to survive, keep together, and stay free.

Mara and Dann reminded me of The Parable of the Sower, one of my favorites: both tell the story of intelligent young women in societies that are falling apart, trying to imagine a better world while dealing with the realities of being female, vulnerable, and relatively powerless.

It also reminded me of The Urth of the New Sun, another favorite: both are coming-of-age stories set in a "dying Earth" filled with intellectual puzzles for the reader. Because the setting is far in the future, the society is relatively ignorant, and the protagonists are young and naive, the reader is left to figure out- with subtle clues from the author- just what is going on. Are the people and creatures that we encounter strange because they are different from what she's used to, do they represent the diversity our own world, extrapolated to the future, or are they the product of genetic engineering? I always felt sure the answers were there, but didn't always know what they were right away.

I've just begun Lessing's sequel, and we'll see if that changes my experience of Mara and Dann. I'm looking forward to the journey.

[brdsk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended for anyone looking for a thoughtful read.

Shaped like an adventure fable, this book is rich with non flashy science fiction, environment and ecology focus, and social psychology. Slowly unfolding, this book sucked me into its world, forcing me to share its anxieties and tribulations. Exploring the world with Mara as my main companion was an emotional experience, showcasing the limitations of human understanding based on our individual experiences. I especially enjoyed the realism and layers of perspectives and references in the story.

For me this was a fast read of two days, as I could not stop thinking of this world and wanting to learn more. Definitely will be reading it again as well.


If you enjoy analysing how the environment (both physical and the cultural settings that follow from it) affects both individuals and communities at large, this is for you.

If you are looking for a non stop fast pace adventure or technology rich dramatic sci fi, this it's not your book yet. But i hope you do read it one day.

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ms. Lessing takes the reader on a compelling journey through an altered Africa as Mara and Dann struggle to survive hunger, slavers, rapists, drug addicts, all while traveling towards a mysterious destiny. Like its two protagonists, we find ourselves on an Earth of scant resources, tribal warfare, desert seascapes and ghost cities.

There is love here, gripping in its sorrow and regret. The author presents a powerful sibling affection, one that falters yet never fails to return. We become attached to Mara and, by extension, the flighty, foolish Dann. Their battles become our battles; their hopes become our hopes.

Passionate, brutal, harrowing yet sparkling with unexpected moments of warmth, this novel thrusts us into a nightmare world of the future. Whether as adventure, cautionary tale or epic love story, Mara and Dann reminds us that even the bleakest future can be survived if we all pull together.

[Libby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautifully written story of survival set in a distant future ice age, where only remnants of recognizable cultures remain. Siblings Mara and Dann must flee political unrest and famine in search of safety, allies, and the mystery of their own identities. Though haunting questions resonate as Lessing explores survival, redemption, and the unbreakable ties of love, the book doesn’t really distinguish itself from others in the genre, largely because Dann is plot-conveniently short-sighted, the pacing is uneven, and there’s an over-reliance on mythic tropes. Fortunately, the precision and specificity of Lessing’s prose render the setting in rich detail, and exploring her world becomes as interesting, if not more so, than the mystery that drives her protagonists.

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doris Lessing returns to science fiction, but in a very different way from the Canopus books; this is not symbolic or allegorical, but a straightforward narration. The novel belongs to the subgenre of "post-civilization future" stories, about a world thousands of years from now, during the next Ice Age. It is set in an Africa which is drying up, and tells the adventures of a pair of orphans, brother and sister, who make their way north. There is little in the way of high technology (a few survivals from not too far in our future) and refreshingly no magic or "paranormal", just a good narrative in the semi-romantic style traditional to science fiction. It is very well written, as one would expect from Doris Lessing, the characters are well developed and the ideas are thoughtful.

[Joe Tristram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to have given this 5 stars, and I do think it's a remarkable book, but I have enough doubts about what may be plot holes to prevent that
Doris Lessing wrote Mara and Dann in 1995, which was a wholly different era in terms of understanding of climate change and yet she tells a story of a world plunged into terrible change, with millions of refugees and many others willfully not seeing what was happening. At the same time she tells us a fairy story, a lost and dispossessed Princess and Prince, a sister and brother whose characters are formed in the trials of the time they are born into and the suffering they experience. Told through the eyes of the older sister this is a story of enduring love, mental illness, and the search for security in a world that has none.

[Robert Nolin]

I can't remember what made me pick this up, but it's not for me. Many years ago, I was impressed by Shikasta, as a work of literary SF. But this book is simply too dry (pun intended) and boring to continue. It feels like I'm being dared to continue reading about such deprivation from the comfort of my easy chair. As I say, not for me. DNF at page 82.

[Samantha Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to get into at first but so good.

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing style in this, it fell flat for me in many moments, but the overall story was really fascinating and incredibly prescient.