Britain's Lessing wins Nobel Prize in literature
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — British writer Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy said today, citing her "skepticism, fire and visionary power" in dozens of works, notably her classic "The Golden Notebook."
Lessing, who at 87 is the oldest person to win the Nobel Literature prize, was born to British parents who were living in what is now Iran. The family later moved to Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. She dropped out of school at age 13.
She made her debut with "The Grass Is Singing" in 1950. Her other works include the semiautobiographical "Children Of Violence" series, largely set in Africa.
Her breakthrough was the 1962 "Golden Notebook," the Swedish Academy said.
"The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that inform the 20th century view of the male-female relationship," the academy said in its citation announcing the prize.
Other important novels of Lessing's include "The Summer Before Dark" in 1973 and "The Fifth Child" in 1988.
Lessing's family moved to a farm in Rhodesia in 1925, an experience she described in the first part of her autobiography "Under My Skin" that was released in 1944.
