Doris May Lessing

Doris May Lessing was born in Persia, now Iran, to British parents who had met when her father, who lost his leg in the First World War, was recovering in the hospital where her mother was a nurse. Much of her work is pro-foundly autobiographical, reflecting not just the worlds in which she grew up - wrenched by wars, empire-building and clashes of civilisations - but also the worlds within her. Initially, the broader geographical context was most noticeable. She arrived in London with the manuscript of her first novel The Grass is Singing, a critique of the white civilisation in Africa, and followed it with a collection of short stories touching similar themes, and with the opening novels in The Children of Violence sequence. The heroine in these novels showed many of the traits that would become familiar to Lessing's readers - a strong, complex woman, one who is engaged, active, seeking a better world politically and socially, and searching the layers and alternative personalities that make up her character. —Naxos Audiobooks