The 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature

has been awarded to Doris Lessing, "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

Hmm, I might have to bump The Golden Notebook up my TBR list...

They are quick off the mark, as usual - it's only 58 years since she wrote The grass is singing...

go here for thread already started - The Prizes - Nobel

I've never read her work, but I might try something. Any suggestions?

I liked her Canopus in Argos : Archives series, which is science fiction, (many have not liked it though). There are about five volumes in the series and they tell of an earth which has suffred and for whomthere are guides (from outer space?) who are trying to help. Also her Briefing for a descent into hell, the story of a man trapped and traveling through a mental illness at some sort of institution - the description of where this person goes in his other world are quite marvelous.

>4 cafepithecus: Cafepithecus, among the ones that made the most long-lasting impressions on me were the five books in the series called The Children of Violence, which starts with Martha Quest.

If you start one of Lessing's books and it doesn't work for you, start another one. There's no such thing as a "typical Doris Lessing book;" she's all over the map stylistically and thematically. The Children of Violence is essentially realistic, with autobiographical elements, and is set in the racial turbulence of midcentury southern Africa (though it takes a completely unexpected left turn halfway through the last volume, The Four-Gated City). As vpfluke noted, she's also written science fiction and some fairly abstract psychological studies such as Briefing for a Descent into Hell.

I'm glad she got the Nobel Prize.