Doris Lessing

Also known as Doris May Tayler, Jane Somers, Doris May Lessing

British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer, and short story writer (1919–2013)

AI overview

Doris Lessing was a British writer who worked across multiple forms including novels, poetry, plays, and short stories during a long career spanning most of the twentieth century. She matters because her diverse body of work explored complex themes of politics, identity, and human experience, making her one of the significant literary voices of her era.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 1919
Died: 17 November 2013
Works: 316

Top works

Prentice Hall Literature -- Platinum
A ripple from the storm
In pursuit of the English
A small personal voice
Five short novels

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Female
Origin: United Kingdom
Active from: 1919-10-22
Active to: 2013-11-17

Official site Discogs

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 145
Total plays: 1,904

Similar artists

Jens LapidusJohan TheorinHenning MankellAlice BabsMargaret Atwood

via Last.fm · Doris Lessing

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges
· 2006 · cited 7,033x
Worldwide trends in body-mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416 population-based measurement studies in 128·9 million children, adolescents, and adults
· 2017 · cited 5,477x
Global causes of maternal death: a WHO systematic analysis
· 2014 · cited 4,799x
The Immune Landscape of Cancer
· 2018 · cited 4,678x
Global incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 371 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021
· 2024 · cited 4,083x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

“It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.”
“In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.”
“If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.”
“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.”
“Laughter is by definition healthy.”
“Nonsense, it was all nonsense: this whole damned outfit, with its committees, its conferences, its eternal talk, talk, talk, was a great con trick; it was a mechanism to earn a few hundred men and women incredible sums of money.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Official website

Doris Lessing: A Retrospective

The complete Doris Lessing, including a biography, an extensive detailed bibliography, a catalog of her books, reprinted articles, audio and portraits throughout the years.

dorislessing.org →

Link to the official site · 1,286 chars · not written by Vinony

Wikidata facts

Official website: www.dorislessing.org
Image: Dorisa Lesinga (cropped).JPG

Show 8 more facts

P8168: Episode
Commons category: Doris Lessing
date of birth: 1919-10-22
date of death: 2013-11-17
birth name: Doris May Tayler
pseudonym: Jane Somers
start of work period: 1950-00-00
name in native language: Doris May Lessing

Sources (12)

via Wikidata · CC0

~17 min read

Article

Doris May Lessing (née Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist – sometimes identified as Rhodesian early in her career – and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. Lessing was born to British parents in Qajar Iran, where she lived until she was 6 in 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remained until moving to London, England, in 1949. Her novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–1969), 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 oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, at age 87.