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Lessing's 'Skepticism' Made a Nobel Certain

Posted on: Friday, 12 October 2007, 06:00 CDT

By Deirdre Donahue

When the Swedish Academy awarded British writer Doris Lessing the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, it praised her "skepticism, fire and visionary power."

The feminist writer and political radical (she was once a member of the Communist Party) quickly proved her skepticism about awards and money.

When told by reporters gathered outside her London home that she had won the prize worth $1.5 million, she replied, "I couldn't care less," according to the Associated Press.

"I can't say I'm overwhelmed with surprise," she told reporters. "I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off." Lessing, who will be 88 on Oct. 22, is the oldest writer to win the Nobel.

But Lessing's selection surprised literary oddsmakers, who were betting on Philip Roth, Israel's Amos Oz and Japan's Haruki Murakami.

Lessing's best-known work is 1962's The Golden Notebook, a novel that offered insights into women's lives and emotions. "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 Swedish Academy said.

Equally admired is Lessing's first novel, The Grass Is Singing, published in 1950. Set in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), it revolves around the murder of a white woman by her black servant. After speaking out against apartheid, Lessing was banned from South Africa and Rhodesia in 1956. Born in Persia (now Iran) to British parents in 1919, she was 5 when they moved to Rhodesia.

Beginning in the 1970s, Lessing became more involved with experimental writing and science fiction, which has dismayed some literary critics.

"This is pure political correctness," critic Harold Bloom told the AP. "Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable."

Lessing continues to write and publish. This past summer, she released a feminist novel, The Cleft. She is working on a novel about her parents. (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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