Stuff About Books and Literature

Doris Lessing, the Nobel prize-winning British author of over 50 novels, has died, aged 94. Doris Lessing. Image by Elke Wetzig Doris Lessing , born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919, has died, aged 94. Her parents were British and in 1925, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). At aged thirteen, she left school. She has been quoted as saying that "unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers." In 2007, aged 88, she was awarded the Nobel prize in literature and was described by the Academy as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." Famous for The Golden Notebook , 1962,  The Grass Is Singing , 1949, and numerous other works, her most recent novel is Alfred and Emily , 2008, which she had said would be her last book. Read more about Doris Lessing at Author Doris Lessing 'prolific and uncon