British female writer Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel Prize in
literature for five decades of epic novels covering the fields of
feminism, politics as well her youth in Africa, the Swedish Academy
announced Thursday.
Doris Lessing, a file
photo
The academy cited Lessing as "that epicist of the female
experience who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has
subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."
Lessing was born in 1919 to British parents in Persia, now Iran.
The family moved to Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, in
1925, where they lived on a farm.
After leaving the convent school at 14, Lessing went on to work
as a nanny, a telephonist, an office worker, a stenographer and a
journalist. She divorced twice and has two children.
The Grass Is Singing, which was
published in 1950.
Lessing went to Britain at the age of 30 with the manuscript of
her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, in which she
examines the relationship between a white farmer's wife and her
black servant.
It is "both a tragedy based on love-hatred and a study of
unbridgeable racial conflicts," the academy said.
The Golden Notebook, which was
published in 1962.
Race and empire are themes frequently explored by Lessing. Her
1962 novel The Golden Notebook was widely considered her
breakthrough work, a book that became a favourite for the feminist
movement for examining the male-female sexual relationship from a
woman's standpoint.
"The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work
and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th
century view of the male-female relationship," the academy
said.
The autobiographical Under My Skin (1994) and
Walking in the Shade (1997) are widely regarded as marking
the high-point of Lessing's career. They were praised for capturing
the last days of the British Empire.
As a strident critic of apartheid in South Africa and racism in
Southern Rhodesia, Lessing was banned for many years from visiting
either country. In Britain she became active in the Communist Party
for a few years in the 1950s and campaigned against nuclear
weapons.
Her other important works include the semi-autobiographical
Children Of Violence series, The Summer Before
Dark in 1973 and The Fifth Child in 1988.
The Fifth Child, which was published
in 1988
Lessing, 87, is the oldest person to win the Nobel Literature
Prize. She is the second British writer to win the prize in three
years, the 34th woman to win a Nobel and the 11th to take the
literature award.
Last year, the Nobel Literature Prize went to Turkish author
Orhan Pamuk.
This was the fourth of the prestigious Nobel Prizes handed out
this year, with awards in chemistry, physics and medicine made in
the past three days.
The winners of the Peace Prize will be announced Friday in Oslo,
Norway, to be followed by those for Economics next Monday.
Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually since 1901 to those who
" conferred the greatest benefit on mankind during the preceding
year."
The prizes are usually announced in October and are handed out
on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel, a
Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite.
Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash
award of 10 million Swedish kronor (US$1.53 million).
(Xinhua News Agency October 12, 2007)
