Doris Lessing

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Doris Lessing , CH (born October 22, 1919 in Kermanshah , Persia ; † November 17, 2013 in London ; born Doris May Tayler ) was a British writer. In 2007 she received the Nobel Prize in Literature .

Doris Lessing at a reading at the Lit.Cologne 2006 in Cologne.Doris May Lessing signature.svg

Life

Doris May Taylor was born to Emily Maude Taylor, who worked as a nurse in a hospital and was marked by the loss of the love she had fallen on the front lines. Her father was Alfred Taylor, a bank clerk and war veteran . Physically and mentally damaged by the war, he no longer wanted to live in England. He found a job with the Imperial Bank of Persia . The family lived first in Kermanshah, then in Tehran . In 1925 she moved to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe ), where she lived a hard life in the countryside. Doris attended a Catholic convent school and Girls High School in the capital Salisbury (today's Harare ). The huge piece of land owned by the family, a corn farm, did not bring any wealth, so that her mother had to give up the dream of leading a bourgeois existence “among the savages”. She dropped out of school at fourteen and worked first as a nanny and then as a secretary. The author had a difficult and unhappy childhood, and her texts about life in the British colonies of Africa are full of compassion for the empty existence of the British settlers as well as for the bleak plight of the local population.

In 1939, Doris Taylor married Frank Charles Wisdom; the couple had two children (a son, born in 1939, and a daughter, born in 1943). In 1943 the marriage was divorced and the children stayed with the father. She later justified her decision with a lack of alternatives: “For a long time I thought it was a good thing. Nothing is more boring for an intelligent woman than spending endless time with young children. I realized I wasn't the first choice for parenting. I could have ended up as an alcoholic or a frustrated intellectual like my mother. ”In 1945 she married the German émigré Gottfried Lessing , with whom she had another son named Peter in 1947, whom she took to England after the divorce in 1949 stayed with her all his life. In her last years she took care of him during his serious illness (diabetes); he died three weeks before her. Gottfried Lessing's sister Irene was the wife of Klaus Gysi and mother of Gregor Gysi . After her second divorce, Doris Lessing no longer married; she kept the German surname.

Doris Lessing's first novel was printed, The Grass Is Singing (African Tragedy) , and was published in London in 1950 after she moved from Rhodesia. With this black and white fateful drama, she made her literary breakthrough. In August 2015 it became known that Lessing had been extensively monitored by the British Security Service between 1943 and 1964 . In 1982 the entry ban imposed on them for more than two decades in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia was lifted. After that she visited her old home again several times. From this experience the report "African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe" (1992, German: Return to Africa ) arose .

Doris Lessing died on November 17, 2013 in London. It was in the Golders Green Crematorium in London cremated , where her ashes is located.

Literary work

Her "African tragedy" The Grass Is Singing from 1950 gave, for the first time, a face and voice to a type of woman from the white minorities ruling in Central and South Africa, and gave Doris Lessing's literary reputation a solid foundation thanks to a moving story that also included racial issues. While this pioneering novel of post-colonialism received great attention in Great Britain, it did not come out in Germany until thirty years later. Her best-known novel “The Golden Notebook” was published in English in 1962 and in Germany in 1978.

Lessing's literary work is currently divided into three periods:

After the Sufi topic, Doris Lessing dealt with all three subject areas.

When asked which of her works she herself considered the most important, Lessing named the novels of the Canopus in Argos cycle . These books are based in part on the worldview of the Sufis or Sufism , which Lessing arrived at through the mediation of Idries Shah . Earlier works also show an echo of this theme, for example Briefing for a Descent into Hell and Memoirs of a Survivor . Two books in the cycle were adapted as an opera by Philip Glass : The Making Of The Representative of Planet 8 in 1988 and The Marriages between Zone Three, Four and Five 1997, with Lessing himself writing the stage versions.

The golden notebook (1962)

Her novel The Golden Notebook (German version: "Das goldene Notebook") was published in 1962. The focus of the work is Anna Wulf, a politically committed, intellectual and emancipated woman, her friend Molly Jacobs, and her lovers and children. The action takes place in Rhodesia at the outbreak of World War II, in the Communist Party milieu in England in the 1950s and among intellectuals in London. The book has both fictional and autobiographical elements that are told subjectively and non-linearly in an experimental form. In literary studies, the Golden Notebook is Lessing's main work; when Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, the work was appropriately recognized.

Alfred and Emily (2008)

Alfred and Emily is based on the life of Lessing's parents. The dice are thrown twice: on the first roll, the First World War has little to do with England; Alfred and Emily lead a life that fulfills many of their dreams and they do not marry each other (part 1). As a result of the second litter, the two found themselves as married couples on a meager farm in Southern Rhodesia and not only the first, but also the Second World War had an impact on both generations of the family (part 2). The work has a new hybrid form and consists of a narrative ("Novella"), notebook, memoir, an encyclopedic entry, two epitaphs and an epigraph from Lady Chatterly's Lover by DH Lawrence . The last two chapters in the second part have been viewed as appendices because they follow the process of reconciliation between daughter Doris Lessing and her mother, Emily McVeagh Tayler.

reception

The golden notebook is considered by literary scholars to be their main work. It is a modern classic . Various critics compare Doris Lessing with Virginia Woolf and call them the two great women of 20th century English literature . Others, such as the literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki , were disappointed with the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Doris Lessing.

On October 11, 2007, the Swedish Academy announced its decision to award the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature to “the epic woman of female experience who, with skepticism, passion and visionary power, has set out to examine a fragmented civilization” . Since Doris Lessing was unable to travel to Sweden due to illness at the time the award was presented, her British publisher Nicholas Pearson accepted the award for her and also read the traditional Nobel Lecture by Doris Lessing.

Awards

bibliography

Novels Children of Violence / Children of Violence
  • Martha Quest. 1952.
    • German: Martha Quest. Novel. Translated by Karin Kersten and Iris Wagner . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1981.
  • A proper marriage. 1954.
    • German: a real marriage. Translated by Karin Kersten and Iris Wagner. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-608-95082-6 .
  • A ripple from the storm. 1958.
    • German: Sturmzeichen. Translated by Karin Kersten and Iris Wagner. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-608-95083-4 .
  • Landlocked. 1965.
    • German: Landumschlossen. Translated by Karin Kersten and Iris Wagner. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-608-95084-2 .
  • The Four-Gated City. 1969.
    • German: The four-gate city. Translated by Karin Kersten and Iris Wagner. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-608-95085-0 .
Cycle of novels Canopus in Argos: Archives / Canopus in Argos: Archives.
  • Shikasta . 1979.
    • German: Shikasta . Personal, psychological and historical documents on the visit of JOHOR (George Sherban), envoy (Grade 9) 87th of the Latter-day period . Translated by Helga Pfetsch. S. Fischer / Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-10-043906-6 .
  • The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five. 1980.
    • English: The marriages between zones three, four and five. Translated by Manfred Ohl and Hans Sartorius. S. Fischer / Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-10-043907-4 .
  • The Sirian Experiments. 1980.
    • English: The Sirian Trials: A Report by Ambien II, one of the five. Translated by Manfred Ohl and Hans Sartorius. S. Fischer / Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-10-043908-2 .
  • "Martha Quest" 1981.
  • The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. 1982.
    • German: The emergence of the representative of Planet 8. Translated by Manfred Ohl and Hans Sartorius. S. Fischer / Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-10-043909-0 .
  • The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. 1983.
    • English: The sentimental agents in the kingdom of Volyen. Translated by Manfred Ohl and Hans Sartorius. S. Fischer / Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-10-043910-4 .
Single novels
  • The Grass Is Singing. 1950.
    • German: African tragedy. Translated by Ernst Sander . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1953.
  • Retreat to Innocence. 1956.
  • The Golden Notebook . 1962.
  • Briefing for a Descent into Hell. 1971.
    • English: instruction for a descent to hell. Translated by Iris Wagner. S. Fischer / Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-10-043905-8 .
  • The Summer Before the Dark. 1973.
  • Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
  • To Room Nineteen . 1978.
  • The Diary of a Good Neighbor. 1983. (as Jane Somers)
    • English: The Diary of Jane Somers. Translated by Barbara Schönberg. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-608-95252-7 .
  • If the Old Could… 1984. (as Jane Somers)
    • English: The love story of Jane Somers. Translated by Barbara Schönberg. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-608-95343-4 .
  • The Good Terrorist . 1985.
  • The Fifth Child . 1988.
  • Love, again. 1996.
    • German: And love again. Translated by Irene Rumler. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-455-04391-7 .
  • Mara and Dann. 1999.
    • German: Mara and Dann. Translated by Barbara Christ. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-455-04393-3 .
  • Ben, in the world. 2000. (Continuation of The Fifth Child )
    • German: Ben in the world. Translated by Lutz Kliche. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-455-04394-1 .
  • The sweetest dream. 2001.
    • German: a sweet dream. Translated by Barbara Christ. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-455-04387-9 .
  • The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog (2005, sequel to Mara and Dann )
    • English: The story of General Dann and Mara's daughter, of Griot and the Snow Dog. Translated by Barbara Christ. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-455-04385-2 .
  • The Cleft . 2007.
Collections
  • This Was the Old Chief's Country. 1951.
  • Five short novels. 1953.
  • The Habit of Loving. 1957.
  • A Man and Two Women. 1963.
  • African Stories. 1964.
  • Winter in July. 1966.
  • The Black Madonna. 1966.
  • Nine African Stories. 1968.
  • The Story of a Non-Marrying Man and Other Stories (1972, also as The Temptation of Jack Orkney and Other Stories. )
  • This Was the Old Chief's Country: Collected African Stories, Vol. 1. 1973.
  • The Sun Between Their Feet: Collected African Stories, Vol. 2. 1973.
  • To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories, Vol. 1. 1978.
  • The Temptation of Jack Orkney: Collected Stories, Vol. 2. 1978.
    • English: The Temptation of Jack Orkney. Translated by Adelheid Dormagen. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-608-95223-3 .
  • Stories. 1978.
  • Through the tunnel. 1990.
  • London Observed: Stories and Sketches. 1992.
  • The Real Thing: Stories and Sketches. 1992.
  • Spies I Have Known. 1995.
  • The pit. 1996.
  • The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels. 2003.
    • German: A child of love. Translated by Barbara Christ. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-455-04386-0 .

German single publications:

  • The other woman: narration. Translated by Ernst Sander. The Little Book # 70. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1954 (original title: The Other Woman ).
  • The magic is not for sale: 5 stories from Africa. Translated by Lore Krüger. Tribune, Berlin (East) 1956.
  • Pleasure. (7) Stories. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-423-10327-2 .
  • How I finally lost my heart Stories. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1985.
Pieces
  • Before the Deluge. 1953.
  • Mr. Dollinger. 1958.
  • Each His Own Wilderness. 1958, 1959.
    • German: Everyone their own wilderness. Translated by Armin Thorn. Hunziger, Bad Homburg 1987.
  • The Truth about Billy Newton. 1960.
  • Play with a tiger. 1962.
  • The Grass Is Singing. 1962. (TV play)
  • The Storm. 1966. (based on a play by Alexander Ostrowsky)
  • Please Do Not Disturb. 1966. (TV play)
  • Care and Protection. 1966. (TV play)
  • Between Men. 1967. (TV play)
  • The Singing Door. 1973.
  • The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. 1988. (Libretto, with music by Philip Glass)
Cat stories and books
  • Particularly cats. 1967.
  • Particularly Cats and Rufus the Survivor. 1993.
  • The Old Age of El Magnifico. 2000.
  • On Cats (2002, collective edition of the cat books)
Poems
  • Fourteen Poems. 1959.
Autobiographical
  • Going home. 1957.
    • German: Heimkehr. Translated by Karin Kersten. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-608-95318-3 .
  • African Laughter. Four Visits to Zimbabwe (1992)
    • German: return to Africa. Translated by Anette Grube. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-455-04389-5 .
  • Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949. 1994.
    • German: Under the Skin: Autobiography 1919–1949. Translated by Karen Nölle-Fischer. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-455-04390-9 .
  • Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography 1949 to 1962. 1997.
    • German: Steps in the Shadow: Autobiography 1949–1962. Translated by Christel Wiemken. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-455-04392-5 .
  • Alfred and Emily . 2008.
Essayistic
  • In Pursuit of the English. 1960.
  • Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. 1987.
  • The Wind Blows Away Our Words. 1987.
  • A Small Personal Voice. 1994.
    • German: In a quiet, personal voice. Translated by Regine Laudann. S. Fischer / Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-10-043915-5 .
  • Conversations. 1994. (Interviews, edited by Earl G. Ingersoll)
  • Putting the Questions Differently. 1996. (Interviews, edited by Earl G. Ingersoll)
  • Time Bites: Views and Reviews. 2004.
  • On Not Winning the Nobel Prize. (Nobel Prize Speech 2007, published 2008)

literature

Monographs
  • Barbara S. Brucker: The whole of which we are parts. On the tradition and experience of inner space with Doris Lessing. Publishing house Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1999, ISBN 3-8260-1669-6 .
  • Eve Bertelesen (Ed.): Doris Lessing. McGraw Hill, New York 1985.
  • Harold Bloom (Ed.): Doris Lessing. Bloom's Modern Critical Views. Chelsea House Publishers, Philadelphia 2003, ISBN 0-7910-7441-2 .
  • Shirley Budhos: The Theme of Enclosure in Selected Works of Doris Lessing. Whitston, Troy & New York 1987.
  • Dorothy Brewster: Doris Lessing. Twayne, New York 1965.
  • Mariette Clare: Doris Lessing and Women's Appropriation of Science Fiction. Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Birmingham 1984.
  • Betsy Draine: Substance under Pressure: Artistic Coherence and Evolving Form in the Novels of Doris Lessing. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1983.
  • Shadia S. Fahim: Doris Lessing: Sufi Equilibrium and the Form of the Novel. Macmillan, Basingstoke, et al. a. 1994, ISBN 0-333-55908-8 .
  • Katherine Fishbum: The Unexpected Universe of Doris Lessing: A Study in Narrative Technique. Greenwood, Westport, Connecticut 1985.
  • Carey Kaplan, Ellen Cronan Rose (Ed.): Doris Lessing: The Alchemy of Survival. Ohio University Press, Athens 1988.
  • Jeannette King: Doris Lessing. E. Arnold, London 1989.
  • Mona Knapp: Doris Lessing. Ungar, New York 1984.
  • Guido Kums: Fiction or, The Language of Our Discontent: A Study of the Built-In Novelist in the Novels of Angus Wilson, Lawrence Durrell, and Doris Lessing. P. Lang, New York 1985.
  • Jean Pickering: Understanding Doris Lessing. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia 1990. * Annis Pratt, LS Dembo (Ed.): Doris Lessing: Critical Studies. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1974.
  • Alice Ridout, Roberta Rubenstein (Ed.): Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook After Fifty. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2015, ISBN 978-1-137-47742-2 .
  • Alice Ridout, Susan Watkins: Doris Lessing: Border Crossings. Continuum International Publishing, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-4411-0416-8 .
  • Margaret Moan Rowe: Doris Lessing. Women Writers. Macmillan Education, Oxford 1994, ISBN 0-333-55487-6 .
  • Roberta Rubenstein: The Novelistic Vision of Doris Lessing: Breaking the Forms of Consciousness. University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1979.
  • Lorna Sage: Doris Lessing. Methuen, London 1983.
  • Paul Schlueter: The Novels of Doris Lessing. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale 1973.
  • Volker Schulz: Analytical-evaluative criticism of the translation of narrative prose. A case study on Eva Schönfeld's translation of Doris Lessing's novella “The Fifth Child”. Peter Lang Edition, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-631-56941-2 .
  • Claire Sprague, Virginia Tiger (Ed.): Critical Essays on Doris Lessing. Hall, Boston 1986.
  • Claire Sprague: Rereading Lessing: Narrative Patterns of Doubling and Repetition. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 1987.
  • Claire Sprague (Ed.): In Pursuit of Doris Lessing: Nine Nations Reading. Palgrave Macmillan, London 1990, ISBN 1-349-20756-X .
  • Mary Ann Singleton: The City and the Veld: The Fiction of Doris Lessing. Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania 1976.
  • Jenny Taylor (Ed.): Notebooks / Memoirs / Archives: Reading and Re-reading Doris Lessing. Routledge, London / Boston 1982.
  • Michael Thorpe: Doris Lessing. Longman, London 1973.
  • Susan Watkins: Doris Lessing. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2010, ISBN 978-0-7190-7481-3 .
  • Ruth Whitaker: Doris Lessing. Macmillan, London and St. Martin's Press, New York 1988
Bibliographies
  • Eric T. Brueck: Doris Lessing: A Descriptive Bibliography of Her First Editions. Metropolis, London 1984.
  • Selma R. Burkom, Margaret Williams Troy: Doris Lessing: A Checklist of Primary and Secondary Sources. Whitston, New York 1973.
  • Catharina Ipp: Doris Lessing: A Bibliography. University of the Witwatersrand Department of Bibliography, Johannesburg 1967.
  • Dee Seligman: Doris Lessing: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 1981.
Articles and interviews
  • Usch Kiausch: A conversation with Doris Lessing. In: Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): The Science Fiction Year 1990. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag , Munich, ISBN 3-453-03905-X , pp. 127–130.
  • Usch Kiausch: A conversation with Doris Lessing. In: Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): The Science Fiction Year 1999. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-453-14984-X , pp. 731-743.
  • "Who is Doris Lessing? - Regina Lessing in conversation with Doris Lessing". Feature length: 54:14. Contributors: Rosemarie Fendel, Donata Höffer and Ingeborg Kallweit. Manuscript a. Director: Regina Leßner. Production: NDR / WDR 2004. Published as an audio book by Verlag Hoffmann und Campe, 2004, ISBN 3-455-32030-9 .
  • Elke Schmitter : Doris Lessing: In the main and secondary contradiction. In: passions. 99 women authors of world literature. Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-570-01048-8 , pp. 306-310.
Lexicons

Web links

Commons : Doris Lessing  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Doris Lessing dies aged 94" theguardian.com of November 17, 2013.
  2. a b Bernadette Conrad: From one world to the next - On the death of the Nobel Prize laureate Doris Lessing . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 268 . Zurich, November 18, 2013, p. 33 .
  3. ^ Julia Baird: Baird: Why Mothers Should Lower the Bar. In: Newsweek . May 5, 2010, accessed October 22, 2019 .
  4. Nobel Prize for Literature: British Secret Service spied on Doris Lessing , Spiegel Online , August 21, 2015.
  5. ^ On the death of Doris Lessing What we are capable of , obituary by Andreas Platthaus in the FAZ on November 17, 2013, accessed December 2, 2013.
  6. ^ Roberta Rubenstein: Literary Half-Lives. Doris Lessing, Clancy Sigal and 'Roman à Clef' , Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2014, p. 193.
  7. ^ Reich-Ranicki complains about the Nobel Prize for Doris Lessing
  8. ^ German-language press release of October 11, 2007 by the Swedish Academy
  9. ^ Honorary Members: Doris Lessing. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 14, 2019 .
  10. Awards. Archived from the original on May 10, 2013 ; accessed on December 4, 2015 .