Doris Lessing wins the Nobel prize for literature

11 Oct 2007

Doris May Lessing was born to British parents in Iran in 1919. She moved with her family to Southern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) in 1925, where her father began farming maize, and was educated in an all-girls school in Salisbury (modern-day Harare). She began writing after leaving school at the age of 14, and published her first novel, The Grass is Singing, in 1950. She has since published numerous other works, including over twenty novels, two operas, two plays, and two volumes of poetry. She is also the author of a number of works of non-fiction.

Lessing has received many rewards for her writing, including the 1954 Somerset Maugham Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1995), the David Cohen Prize, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1999 after declineing a damehood, and was ranked fifth in The Times' list of the greatest British writers since 1945.

The video above captures the moment that Lessing was informed, by a television reporter, that she had won the Nobel Prize for Literature.