Doris Lessing
| Doris Lessing | |
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Lessing at the Lit Cologne literary festival in 2006
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| Born | Doris May Tayler 22 October 1919 Kermanshah, Iran |
| Died | 17 November 2013 (aged 94) London, England, United Kingdom |
| Pen name | Jane Somers |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Period | 1950–2013 |
| Genre | Novel, short story, biography, drama, libretto, poetry |
| Literary movement | Modernism, postmodernism, Sufism, socialism, feminism, scepticism science fiction |
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| Spouse |
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| Children | John (b. 1940), Jean (b. 1941), Peter (b. 1946) |
| Website | |
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Doris May Lessing CH (née Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–69), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983).
Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the eleventh woman and the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In 2001, Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Kermanshah, Iran, on 22 October 1919, to Captain Alfred Tayler and Emily Maude Tayler (née McVeagh), both British subjects. Her father, who had lost a leg during his service in World War I, met his future wife, a nurse, at the Royal Free Hospital in London where he was recovering from his amputation. The couple moved to Iran, for Alfred to take a job as a clerk for the Imperial Bank of Persia. In 1925, the family moved to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to farm maize and other crops on about 1,000 acres (400 ha) of bush that Alfred bought. In the rough environment, his wife Emily aspired to lead an Edwardian lifestyle. It might have been possible had the family been wealthy; in reality, they were short of money and the farm delivered very little income.
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