Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) was a British novelist born Doris May Tayler on 22 October 1919 in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran), to British parents. She spent her early childhood in Iran before her family moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1925, where she grew up on a family farm. Largely self-taught after leaving school at thirteen, she moved to London in 1949 to pursue writing and became one of the most celebrated British authors of the twentieth century, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007 at age eighty-seven. Her notable works include The Grass Is Singing (1950), the five-novel Children of Violence sequence (1952–1969), the landmark The Golden Notebook (1962), and the science fiction Canopus in Argos: Archives series. Lessing's writing style evolved through distinct phases: a Communist-influenced early period exploring colonialism in Africa; a psychological phase examining inner turmoil and feminism; and a later Sufi-inspired phase delving into mysticism. Her prose blended scepticism, visionary power, and epic scope, scrutinising divided societies and personal liberation.