Doris Lessing wins Literature Nobel
Congrats to English writer (born in Persia/Iran) Doris Lessing, who at almost age 88 is the oldest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, which “usually goes to authors in their 50s and 60s.” Not only is she old, but she’s female, and only 11 women have won the prize since its inception in 1901. (She’s also darned cute — see her photos at NPR’s site.) She apparently wasn’t expecting to be honoured by the Nobel committee: “the London-based author was out shopping when the prize was announced.”
Lessing was raised in Rhodesia under apartheid, reflected in her semi-autobiographical novel The Grass Is Singing (1950). The Financial Times notes that she is “best known for her series of novels Children of Violence, written in the 1950s and featuring her heroine Martha Quest, whose growth in consciousness reflected the author’s concerns over social justice,” while others opine that she became famous for her feminist novel The Golden Notebook (1962), written in an “experimental style,” which the Nobel academy noted is one of “the handful of books that inform the 20th century view of the male-female relationship.”
When Lessing was “attacked for being ‘unfeminine’ in her work,” she replied: “‘Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise.’”
She turned down the offer to become a Dame of the British Empire, remarking that there was no British Empire.
Lessing wrote fiction (her most recent novel published in January 2007), essays, science fiction (Canopus in Argos: Archives), a libretto for a Philip Glass work, and a biography.
More background on Lessing in this NPR interview with Lynn Neary, at the BBC, and on Lessing’s website.
Additional resources:
Excerpts from the Academy’s citation awarding the prize to Lessing
Lessing’s page at Nobelprize.org, with bio-bibliography, prize announcement and press release, and list of other resources.
2006 interview with Lessing about her life, with a minor focus on her recent novel, The Story of General Dann and Mara’s Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog, set in a future ice age.
John Mullan, in the books blog at The Guardian, on “Why Lessing Deserves the Nobel Prize.” Also, The Guardian’s snapshot of Lessing, with a short list of recommended books.
Filed under: readers advisory on October 11th, 2007