Biography

Official website for Doris Lessing

Additional information about Doris Lessing and her Nobel Prize in Literature found here.

Doris Lessing was originally born on October 22, 1919 in Iran, but her parents were British. At six years old she and her family moved to modern day Zimbabwe because of the promise of wealth and fortune. This is where Lessing lived for most of her life. She attended convent school until she was fourteen but considered herself to be self educated from all her years of reading American and European classics. Growing up where she was the minority, Lessing became very aware that she was “a member of the white minority pitted against a black majority that was abominably treated and still is” (Lessing). Because of this, social awareness is a common theme in some of her early works. This made Lessing a prominent political activist. Writing was not Lessing’s main source of work, she held many office jobs and had two unsuccessful marriages. She finally decided to take the leap and really depend on her writing career when she and her son moved to England in 1949. “The Grass is Singing” was an instant success. From here she continued to write and one of her books “The Golden Notebook” she was attacked for being unfeminine because of her use of female anger. Her response to this was that she was simply writing about what many women think and feel, even if it comes as a surprise. She continued to write and in the 1970-80s, she took a spin on her writing and decided to dive into science fiction writing, focusing on interspace with themes in psychology and consciousness. From here until her death in 2013, Lessing wrote twelve other books, all ranging in themes and topics. Lessing earned the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, Shakespeare Prize in 1982, and fourteen other prizes between then from all over the world.