Doris Lessing

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Doris Lessing


Born
in Kermanshah, Iran
October 22, 1919

Died
November 17, 2013

Website

Genre

Influences


Doris Lessing was born into a colonial family. both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and later had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she fear
...more

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Quotes by Doris Lessing  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
Doris Lessing

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”
Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

“What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.”
Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

Polls

3rd Quarter 2018 (July - September) Long Read Poll

 
  85 votes, 27.4%

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James 1881, 656 pages
 
  82 votes, 26.5%

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough 1977, 692 pages
 
  56 votes, 18.1%

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu 1008, 1182 pages
 
  47 votes, 15.2%

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing 1962, 640 pages
 
  40 votes, 12.9%

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics posts views last activity  
Bright Young Things: The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing - February 2010 (Spoilers Likely) 12 176 Feb 17, 2010 01:13PM  
Chicks On Lit: A to Z world wide travel through books. 45 125 Mar 24, 2010 12:00PM  
Every one's Choice: A Tie for April 57 46 Apr 02, 2010 11:55PM  
Book lovers : A-Z Challenge 48 270 Apr 14, 2010 09:59AM  
The Sword and Laser: Books to avoid 37 332 Apr 30, 2010 11:30AM  
The Book Challenge: Kuutar's challenges for 2010 24 86 Aug 31, 2010 09:33AM  
SA Book & Challen...: 2010 A-Z Author Challenge 11 107 Sep 15, 2010 08:48AM  
Knight-Reading: This topic has been closed to new comments. Reading Log Week of 9/27/10 3 12 Oct 03, 2010 08:48PM