Doris Lessing (Iran, 1919 - London, 2013), was an English writer born in Persia, spent her childhood on a farm in Zimbabwe after her family moved there in 1924. She left school at 14 and was self-educated while working as a clinic assistant, marked by a contentious relationship with her mother that led her to become independent at 17. After two marriages and three children, she settled in England in 1949, where she began her literary career with The Grass is Singing (1950), a novel that denounced racism in Africa
Her work, influenced by her life in Africa and her communist activism, merges social criticism -colonialism, racial inequality- with autobiographical explorations, as in the series Children of Violence (1952-1969). She ventured into science fiction with Canopus in Argos and addressed women's emancipation in The Golden Notebook (1962), an iconic work that made her a feminist symbol despite her rejection of the label. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (2007) and the Prince of Asturias Award (2001), her legacy endures as one of the most critical and visionary voices of the 20th century.
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