British novelist Doris Lessing wins Nobel Literature Prize
by Pia OhlinThu Oct 11, 3:56 PM ET
British writer Doris Lessing on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize for five decades of epic novels that have covered feminism and politics, as well her youth in Africa.
Lessing, who will turn 88 on October 22, is only the 11th woman to have won the prize since it was first awarded in 1901.
The Swedish Academy described the author of "The Golden Notebook" as "that epicist of the female experience who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."
Lessing was out shopping when the prize was announced and only learned the news several hours later when she returned to her London home and was met by a throng of journalists.
"This has been going on for 30 years," said Lessing who put down her groceries and sat on her doorstep, head in her hand, after being told of the award by the waiting photographers.
"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all. It's a royal flush," she said.
Her work has covered a multitude of topics, and over the years she has been mentioned as a possible Nobel laureate but she was not seen as among the frontrunners this year.
"Some decisions take time to mature before you can make them," the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, said.
Although "The Golden Notebook", her best known work, established her as a feminist icon back in 1962, she has consistently refused the label and says her writing does not play a directly political role.
Nonetheless, the Nobel jury noted that "the burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th century view of the male-female relationship."
Born Doris May Taylor in Khermanshah, in what is now Iran, on October 22, 1919, Lessing spent her formative years on a farm in Southern Rhodesia, what is now Zimbabwe, where her British parents moved in 1925.
It was, she later reflected, a "hellishly lonely" upbringing.
Unsurprisingly, she could not wait to escape and in 1939 married Frank Wisdom, by whom she had two children before their divorce in 1943.
She then married a German political activist named Gottfried Lessing, but divorced again in 1949, when she fled to Britain with her young son and the manuscript of her first novel, "The Grass Is Singing."
A searing examination of racial oppression and colonialism, it was published the following year to rapid success.
Her radical political affinities drew her into the British Communist Party, but she resigned in 1956 at the time of the Hungarian uprising, never to return.
Her "Children of Violence" series of novels, published between 1952 and 1969 around a central character named Martha Quest, first established her credentials as both a writer and a feminist.
"I wasn't an active feminist in the 1960s, never have been," she has since insisted. "I never liked the movement because it's too ideologically based. All sorts of claims were made for me that simply weren't true."
In the 1980s, with her popularity in brief decline, she decided to test the importance of a name in publishing, and submitted a novel under a pseudonym, only to find it rejected. It was later published, when she revealed her true identity.
Over the years, she became an increasingly outspoken critic of Africa, particularly the corruption and embezzlement by governments.
She was barred entry to South Africa in 1956, but was finally able to revisit in 1995, after the fall of apartheid.
In recent years Lessing has also written several works of science fiction.
She is also probably one of the oldest people anywhere to have her own page on the popular social networking web site MySpace.
On a recent visit the site announced, under the label "Female - 87 years old," that "Doris Lessing has 136 friends."
Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, Lessing said her age may have tipped the Nobel jury in her favour.
"They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now before I popped off," she said.
Among the other awards she has won are the Prix Medicis in 1976 and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1995.
by Pia OhlinThu Oct 11, 3:56 PM ET
British writer Doris Lessing on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize for five decades of epic novels that have covered feminism and politics, as well her youth in Africa.
Lessing, who will turn 88 on October 22, is only the 11th woman to have won the prize since it was first awarded in 1901.
The Swedish Academy described the author of "The Golden Notebook" as "that epicist of the female experience who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."
Lessing was out shopping when the prize was announced and only learned the news several hours later when she returned to her London home and was met by a throng of journalists.
"This has been going on for 30 years," said Lessing who put down her groceries and sat on her doorstep, head in her hand, after being told of the award by the waiting photographers.
"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all. It's a royal flush," she said.
Her work has covered a multitude of topics, and over the years she has been mentioned as a possible Nobel laureate but she was not seen as among the frontrunners this year.
"Some decisions take time to mature before you can make them," the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, said.
Although "The Golden Notebook", her best known work, established her as a feminist icon back in 1962, she has consistently refused the label and says her writing does not play a directly political role.
Nonetheless, the Nobel jury noted that "the burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th century view of the male-female relationship."
Born Doris May Taylor in Khermanshah, in what is now Iran, on October 22, 1919, Lessing spent her formative years on a farm in Southern Rhodesia, what is now Zimbabwe, where her British parents moved in 1925.
It was, she later reflected, a "hellishly lonely" upbringing.
Unsurprisingly, she could not wait to escape and in 1939 married Frank Wisdom, by whom she had two children before their divorce in 1943.
She then married a German political activist named Gottfried Lessing, but divorced again in 1949, when she fled to Britain with her young son and the manuscript of her first novel, "The Grass Is Singing."
A searing examination of racial oppression and colonialism, it was published the following year to rapid success.
Her radical political affinities drew her into the British Communist Party, but she resigned in 1956 at the time of the Hungarian uprising, never to return.
Her "Children of Violence" series of novels, published between 1952 and 1969 around a central character named Martha Quest, first established her credentials as both a writer and a feminist.
"I wasn't an active feminist in the 1960s, never have been," she has since insisted. "I never liked the movement because it's too ideologically based. All sorts of claims were made for me that simply weren't true."
In the 1980s, with her popularity in brief decline, she decided to test the importance of a name in publishing, and submitted a novel under a pseudonym, only to find it rejected. It was later published, when she revealed her true identity.
Over the years, she became an increasingly outspoken critic of Africa, particularly the corruption and embezzlement by governments.
She was barred entry to South Africa in 1956, but was finally able to revisit in 1995, after the fall of apartheid.
In recent years Lessing has also written several works of science fiction.
She is also probably one of the oldest people anywhere to have her own page on the popular social networking web site MySpace.
On a recent visit the site announced, under the label "Female - 87 years old," that "Doris Lessing has 136 friends."
Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, Lessing said her age may have tipped the Nobel jury in her favour.
"They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now before I popped off," she said.
Among the other awards she has won are the Prix Medicis in 1976 and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1995.
