Doris Lessing

Lessing had two children from her first husband Frank Wisdom – John and Jean.

Her second marriage to Gottfried Lessing produced a son, but the marriage ended in a divorce in 1949.

Putting her career before her children, she left her children from her first marriage and moved to London. She declared, “I felt I wasn't the best person to bring them up”.

Doris Lessing was born to British couple, Emily Maude and Captain Alfred Tayler. Alfred’s leg was amputated during his WWI service; he was employed as a clerk for the Imperial Bank of Persia.

In 1925, the family shifted to Southern Rhodesia, then a British colony, where they farmed on a land owned by Alfred. They could not afford the Edwardian lifestyle that Emily yearned for.

Doris attended the Dominican Convent High School, a Roman Catholic school in Salisbury until she was fourteen. She began to work as a nursemaid, and would read any material that her employer gave her.

She was employed as a telephone operator in Salisbury. In the next few years, following her marriage to Frank Wisdom at nineteen, two children were born to her. She divorced her husband in 1943.

Lessing was attracted to the Left Book Club, a Socialist publishing club. She joined the group, married and later divorced her second husband Gottfried Lessing. She shifted to London with her son, Peter.

Her first novel, ‘The Grass Is Singing’, was published in 1950. Set in Southern Rhodesia of the decade before, it describes the racial tension there. The book created a stir in the literary circles.

From 1952 to 1969, she penned a series of five novels –‘Children of Violence’, depicting its protagonist, Martha Quest’s life time from a rebellious teenager to an active independent old woman.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, her novel, ‘Briefing for a Descent into Hell’, published in 1971, takes us on a terrifying psychological voyage to the inner recesses of our minds.

Her 1974 novel, ‘Memoirs of a Survivor’, is a dark futuristic work set at a time when people are fighting for survival in a barbaric world, having no family values or morals.

Lessing’s 1962 novel, ‘The Golden Notebook’, is an anti-war and anti-Stalinist statement, and scrutinizes the women's liberation movements. Included to TIME’s 100 best English-language novels list, this masterpiece was translated to many languages.

Her 1985 novel ‘The Good Terrorist’ has Alice Mellings, a veteran squatter, as the protagonist. It explains how individuals inspired by revolutionary ideas transform into actual terrorists by circumstances, and is relevant even now.