RIP Doris Lessing

[Gob]

A statement from her publisher, Harper Collins, said she "passed away peacefully at her London home in the early hours of this morning".




Her best-known works include The Golden Notebook, Memoirs of a Survivor and The Summer Before the Dark.

She became the oldest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature when in 2007 she won the award for her life's work aged 88.

Jonathan Clowes, her long-time friend and agent, said she was "a wonderful writer with a fascinating and original mind".

"It was a privilege to work for her and we shall miss her immensely."

"Doris Lessing was a one of the great writers of our age," said Charlie Redmayne, CEO of Harper Collins UK.

"She was a compelling storyteller with a fierce intellect and a warm heart who was not afraid to fight for what she believed in."

The author is survived by her daughter Jean and granddaughters Anna and Susannah.

Born in what is now Iran, she moved to Southern Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe - as a child before settling in England in 1949.

Her debut novel The Grass is Singing was published in 1950 and she made her breakthrough with The Golden Notebook in 1962.
Doris Lessing with her Nobel Prize She was only the 11th woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature

On winning the Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy described Lessing as an "epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

[MajGenl.Meade]

The Golden Notebook. Compulsory reading during a certain youthful phase.

[Crackpot]

did that kid you're standing behind survive your attack?

[MajGenl.Meade]

A quick nibble and then he ran