October 22, 1919

Doris Lessing (October 22, 1919 to November 17, 2013) is described, at the Nobel Prize site:
'....
Prize motivation: "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."...

'Doris Lessing was born in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran). Her father was a bank clerk and her mother a nurse. Her family later moved to Southern Rhodesia in 1925. Doris Lessing attended a convent school and a girls' school, but ended her studies at age 14 and moved from home. She went on to work as a nursemaid, telephonist, stenographer, and journalist, and published a few short stories. Lessing moved to London in 1949. She became involved in politics and social issues and actively took part in the campaign against nuclear weapons. Doris Lessing was married twice and had three children.....

'Doris Lessing's body of work comprises around 50 books and spans several genres. Her writing is characterized by penetrating studies of living conditions in the 20th century, behavioral patterns, and historical developments. Her most experimental novel, 'The Golden Notebook', from 1962, is a study of a woman's psyche and life situation, the lot of writers, sexuality, political ideas, and everyday life. Some of Doris Lessing's books reach into the future. Among other things, she portrays our civilization's final hour from the perspective of an extraterrestrial observer.'

Lessing spoke with authority on the issues women faced in their struggle to establish themselves. She left two children in Africa when she broke out to live according to her own lights. That whole scenario has been much discussed. What is less known is that Lessing later took in a teenager who had been in a mental institution after years of neglect and abuse. Jenny Diski (1947 to 2016) has written her own account of these years: Diski by no means felt "rescued" at the time, as she recounts in her London Review of Books articles. We get quite a different view of Lessing from these essays, which were not published before Lessing died. I am not aware that Lessing scholars have incorporated Diski's perspective.

What is wonderful and amazing is that Jenny Diski became a great writer. And we cannot help but note that Lessing wrote several books about cats; Particularly Cats (1967) for instance. And that Diski also, incorporates her own cats in her prose.