Doris Lessing

1919–2013

British novelist and short-story writer whose fiction ranges from colonial Africa and left-wing politics to psychological and speculative themes. Born in Kermanshah, Persia, she grew up in Southern Rhodesia and settled in London in 1949, publishing her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, the following year. Her books include The Golden Notebook, the Children of Violence sequence, The Memoirs of a Survivor and the Canopus in Argos series, and she also wrote as Jane Somers. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007 and died in November 2013. The Good Terrorist was shortlisted for the 1985 Booker Prize.

Timeline of Doris Lessing’s life

Works

• The Sirian Experiments (1980)
• The Good Terrorist (1985)

Prizes

• The Good Terrorist — The Booker Prize 1985: Shortlist
• The Sirian Experiments — The Booker Prize 1981: Shortlist