Doris Lessing
1919-
Other Works
The Grass Is Singing
Going Home
African Stories
The Doris Lessing Reader
African Laughter
African Childhood One of the most respected writers of our day, Doris Lessing was born to British parents in Persia (present-day Iran). She moved with them to Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) in 1924, where her father became a farmer. Lessing lived in Africa until she was 30 and was strongly affected by life there. Years later she wrote, "The fact is, I don't live anywhere; I never have since I left that first home on the kopje [hill]." Her experiences in colonial Africa made her sensitive to racial and economic exploitation, a subject she has touched upon often in her writing.
England and a Literary Career After the breakup of her second marriage in 1949, Lessing moved with her three-year-old son to England. A year later she published the first of her many books and soon became an acclaimed author. Between 1979 and 1984 she surprised the literary world twice—first, by publishing a series of five science fiction novels, and second, by publishing two novels under the name Jane Somers. Lessing confessed that she was the unknown Jane Somers only after the two books were virtually ignored by critics and buyers. She had wanted to prove the point that today books by new writers have almost no chance of success.
Defending the Short Story Though known mainly for her novels, Lessing has written many short stories. She has noted that "some writers I know have stopped writing short stories because, as they say, 'there is no market for them.' Others like myself, the addicts, go on, and I suspect would go on even if there really wasn't any home for them but a private drawer."
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