Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing (22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. In 2007 Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
“She grappled with the issues of socialism, communism, Africa in turmoil, and yet at the same time she lusted for men and talked about the confusions of her love affairs.” Erica Jong on the best books on women in society.
Books by Doris Lessing
“The Cleft tells of an island of women—an entire female society based on an island—that is, suddenly, “disrupted” by the introduction of a new species: males. No men have ever existed before, and then, out of nowhere, one man appears, bringing sex with him, and so bringing chaos. It’s a creation myth, created out of creation myths.” Read more...
Joshua Cohen, Novelist
“Around the time when the idea of the midlife crisis was being popularised in the 70s, there was a spate of novelistic representations of midlife crises. The Summer Before the Dark is emblematic and symptomatic; it’s a canonical depiction of the stereotypical female midlife crisis of the 1970s. It’s about a forty-five year old woman who has grown-up children and whose husband is going away for work for six months. She is at a loss with what to do with herself, but she happens to be fluent in several languages and gets hired by a global foods company. She goes off to Istanbul and begins a series of adventures about which she’s very conflicted and ambivalent.” Read more...
“Always in the past, the sexy heroines of men’s books have been idiots, but she asserted through her character of Anna that women were brains and bodies and that their brains and bodies interacted. I think that was so revolutionary…It was so important that Doris Lessing came along and wrote a heroine who was sexual and intellectual; she grappled with the issues of socialism, communism, Africa in turmoil, and yet at the same time she lusted for men and talked about the confusions of her love affairs.” Read more...
The best books on Women in Society
Erica Jong, Novelist
Interviews where books by Doris Lessing were recommended
The best books on Women in Society, recommended by Erica Jong
The celebrated feminist gives us her view of essential reading for women – and says the gender revolution is far from over
The best books on Midlife Crisis, recommended by Kieran Setiya
It’s an observable phenomenon that the gap in life satisfaction between the very young and the very old with those in their 40s is equivalent to that associated with getting a divorce. Kieran Setiya, the MIT philosopher and author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, chooses the best books to counsel you through this difficult period.
The Best Political Novels, recommended by Joshua Cohen
Through the writing of political novels, writers might hope to speak against their time, says the American author Joshua Cohen. Here he selects five books in which the protagonist undergoes a political education.
