Doris Lessing Books in Order

Doris Lessing is a celebrated British novelist, playwright, and poet. Born to British parents, her father, crippled in World War I, worked as a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia, and her mother was a nurse. In 1925, the family relocated to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in search of a better life through maize farming. Despite not graduating from high school, Lessing pursued self-education, mirroring the paths of fellow southern African women writers like Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer. Lessing's early years in Salisbury were marked by various roles, including work as a telephone operator. She married Frank Wisdom at nineteen and had two children, but later divorced, seeking a more liberated life. Her connection with the Left Book Club, a group of like-minded Communists, led to her marriage with Gottfried Lessing, with whom she had a son. As she grew disillusioned with the Communist movement, Lessing relocated to London in 1949, marking a significant turning point in her life and career.