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20th July 2008

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Doris Lessing wins Nobel Prize

11.10.07 Joel Rickett

Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2007. The Swedish Academy described the English writer as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

Lessing is published by Fourth Estate in the UK; her most recent book is The Cleft earlier this year. She follows recent British Nobel winner Harold Pinter in 2005. Last year it was won by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk; other recipients this century include JM Coetzee and VS Naipaul.

Lessing's most famous novels include her début The Grass Is Singing (1950), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985) and Under My Skin (1994). She was born in Persia (now Iran) to British parents in 1919; she grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); went to school in Salisbury; and moved to London in 1949, where she still lives.

A profile on the official Nobel website said: "The vision of global catastrophe forcing mankind to return to a more primitive life has had special appeal for Doris Lessing . . . From collapse and chaos emerge the elementary qualities that allow Lessing to retain hope in humanity."

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