18 Nov 2013

Author Doris Lessing dies

8:45 pm on 18 November 2013

Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing died in London on Sunday. She was 94.

She was born in Persia, now Iran, and grew up in southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), before settling in England in 1949.

Lessing tackled race, ideology, gender politics and the workings of the psyche in a prolific career, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.

The BBC reports she married twice and is survived by a daughter Jean and granddaughters Anna and Susannah.

Her best-known works include The Grass Is Singing (1950), The Golden Notebook (1952) and Memoirs of a Survivor.

The content of her other novels ranged from semi-autobiographical African experiences to social and political struggle, psychological thrillers and science fiction.

Long-time friend and agent Jonathan Clowes said she was "a wonderful writer with a fascinating and original mind".