By Bunny Nooryani
Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- British author Doris Lessing, whose latest novel ``The Cleft'' depicts a world without men, won the 2007 Nobel literature prize, the Swedish Academy said.
Lessing, 87, is an ``epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny,'' the Stockholm-based academy said on its Web site today. ``The Golden Notebook,'' her breakthrough novel, ``belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th- century view of the male-female relationship,'' the academy said.
The 10 million-krona ($1.56 million) prize was created in the will of Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901. Nobel, a Swede who invented dynamite, also set up awards for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry and peace.
Turkish author Orhan Pamuk won last year's literature prize, for writing about the interplay and conflicts between different cultures. Past winners include Harold Pinter in 2005, Toni Morrison in 1993 and Saul Bellow in 1976. The award is formally handed over at a ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
The Swedish Academy, which picks the winner on behalf of the Nobel Foundation, was founded in 1786 to develop the Swedish language. The academy keeps nominations for the literature prize secret for at least 50 years.
- Re: Britain's Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize (zt)posted on 10/11/2007
Çà¸Ô£¬ÄãµÄ¿§·È¹Ý¸ãʲô¹í£¿ÎÒ¼¸Ìì½ø²»È¥À²¡£ - Re: Britain's Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize (zt)posted on 10/11/2007
ÕâÀÏÌ«ÎÒÒÔΪ±ðÈËÔçÍü¼ÇÁËÄØ¡£ - posted on 10/11/2007
from nobelprize.org
Doris Lessing was born on 22 October 1919 to British parents in what was then known as Kermanshah in Persia (now Bakhtaran in Iran) as Doris May Taylor. Her father, Alfred Cook Taylor, formerly a captain in the British army during the First World War, was a bank official. Her mother, Emily Maude Taylor, had been a nurse. In 1925 the family moved to a farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) hoping to improve their income. Lessing described her childhood on the farm in the first part of her autobiography, Under My Skin (1994). At the age of seven, she was sent to a convent boarding school but later moved to a girls' school in Salisbury. When 14 she independently ended her formal schooling. In the following years she worked as a young nanny, telephonist, office worker, stenographer and journalist and had several short stories published. In 1939 she married Frank Charles Wisdom with whom she had a son, John, and a daughter, Jean. The couple divorced in 1943. In 1945 Doris married Gottfried Lessing, a German-Jewish immigrant she had met in a Marxist group mainly concerned with the race issue. She became involved with the Southern Rhodesian Labour Party. She and Gottfried had a son, Peter. When the couple divorced in 1949, she took Peter and moved to London, quickly establishing herself as a writer. Between 1952 and 1956 she was a member of the British Communist Party and was active in the campaign against nuclear weapons. Because of her criticism of the South African regime, she was prohibited entry to that country between 1956 and 1995. After a brief visit to Southern Rhodesia in 1956, she was banned there as well for the same reason. In African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe (1992) she described going back in 1982 to the country where she had grown up. She now lives in London.
Doris Lessing made her debut as a novelist with The Grass is Singing (1950), which examines the relationship between a white farmer's wife and her black servant. The book is both a tragedy based in love-hatred and a study of unbridgeable racial conflicts.
Even the semi-autobiographical Children of Violence series, usually called the Martha Quest series for its main character, is largely set in Africa. The series comprises Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), Landlocked (1965) and The Four-Gated City (1969). It describes Martha Quest's awakening to greater awareness on every level and was pioneering in its depiction of the mind and circumstances of the emancipated woman. With these books Lessing created a modern equivalent of the Bildungsroman of women writers of the 19th century. The Children of Violence, despite its emphatic liberation theme, is characterised by an almost fatalistic outlook. The story is told with the mild despair of someone seeing her younger self from the heavens of an afterlife, unable to intervene. The masterpiece is the final volume of the series, The Four-Gated City, a period frescoe apparently enveloping all of England ¨C indeed our entire culture ¨C illuminated by the author¡¯s empathy and incivility.
The Golden Notebook (1962) was Doris Lessing¡¯s real breakthrough. The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship. It used a more complex narrative technique to reveal how political and emotion conflicts are intertwined. The style levels of differing documents and experiences mix: newspaper cuttings, news items, films, dreams and diaries. Anna Wulf, the main character, has five notebooks for her thoughts about Africa, politics and the communist party, her relationship to men and sex, Jungian analysis and dream interpretation. The disjointed form reflects that of the main character's mind. There is no single perspective from which to capture the entirety of her life experience.
Books published in the 1970s included Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971), inspired by R. D. Laing. Lessing has characterised her novel from this period as "inner-space fiction": an attempt in the spirit of Romanticism to expand human knowledge to encompass regions beyond the control of reason and the ego.
In the novel series Canopus in Argos: Archives (vol. 1¨C5, 1979¨C1984) Lessing expanded the science fiction genre. The series studies the post-atomic war development of the human species. Lessing varies thoughts about colonialism, nuclear war and ecological disaster with observations on the opposition between female and male principles. Among inspirations for the work was the Idries Shah¡¯s school of Sufism that she discovered in the 1960s. Doris Lessing revisited her interest in Sufism in the Time Bites (2004) collection of essays.
Lessing returned to realistic narrative in The Good Terrorist (1985), providing a satirical picture of the need of the contemporary left for total control and the female protagonist¡¯s misdirected martyrdom and subjugation. Her analysis of the greenhouse for the terrorist mind in generation hatred and an Übermensch attitude retains currency.
The autobiographical Under My Skin (1994) and Walking in the Shade (1997) represented a new peak in her writing. Lessing recalls not only her own life but the entire epoch: England in the last days of the empire. Her novel The Sweetest Dream (2001) is a stand-alone sequel in fictive form. Perhaps her unsparing view of the polical antics of friends and lovers necessitated such discretion.
Her other important novels are The Summer Before the Dark (1973) and The Fifth Child (1988). In the former, the reader at first infers a liberation motif: a woman finally about to fulfil her gift and sexual desires. After a first reading, the contours of the real novel take shape: a ruthless study of the collapse of values in middle age. The Fifth Child is a masterfully realised psychological thriller, where a woman¡¯s repressed or denied aggression against family life is incarnated in a monstrous boy child.
The vision of global catastrophe forcing mankind to return to a more primitive life has had special appeal for Doris Lessing. It reappears in some of her books of recent years: the fantasy novel Mara and Dann (1999) and its sequel The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog (2005). From collapse and chaos emerge the elementary qualities that allow Lessing to retain hope in humanity.
Literary Prizes: Somerset Maugham Award (1954), Prix M¨¦dicis ¨¦tranger (1976), Österreichischer Staatspreis f¨¹r Europäische Literatur (1981), Shakespeare-Preis der Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F. V. S., Hamburg (1982), W. H. Smith Literary Award (1986), Palermo Prize (1987), Premio Internazionale Mondello (1987), Premio Grinzane Cavour (1989), James Tait Black Memorial Book Prize (1995), Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1995), Premio Internacional Catalunya (1999), David Cohen British Literary Prize (2001), Companion of Honour from the Royal Society of Literature (2001), Premio Principe de Asturias (2001), S.T. Dupont Golden PEN Award (2002).
- Re: Britain's Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize (zt)posted on 10/11/2007
xiaoman wrote:
Çà¸Ô£¬ÄãµÄ¿§·È¹Ý¸ãʲô¹í£¿ÎÒ¼¸Ìì½ø²»È¥À²¡£
sorry,ill.:) - Re: Britain's Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize (zt)posted on 10/11/2007
bil¡¤dungs¡¤ro¡¤man
n.
A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character.
==============
ÕâÀÏÌ«Ì«Õæ²»µÃÁË£¬»¹×ö¹ý¹²²úµ³Ô±ÄØ¡£
- Re: Britain's Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize (zt)posted on 10/11/2007
Ó¢¹úÕâ¸ö¹ú¼ÒµÄÎÄ»¯ºÜÌØÊ⣬ÈÝÒײúÉúºÜ¶à±ä̬¡¢Ñ¹ÒÖ¡¢»Ì»Ì²»¿ÉÖÕÈÕµÄÆæ¹ÖµÄminds¡£³ö¼¸¸öŵ±´¶û½±»ñµÃÕßÎÒÊDz»Ææ¹Ö¡£Õâ¾Í½Ð×ÔÓɺóÒÅÖ¢¡£ - Re: Britain's Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize (zt)posted on 10/13/2007
Æäʵ£¬ËýµÄthe grass is singingÎåÊ®Äê´ú¸ÕдÍê¾Í±»¸´µ©Ò»±¾¿ÆÉú·Á˳öÀ´£¬½»¸øµ±Ê±ÒëÎijö°æÉç³ö°æ¡£¿ÉϧËýµÄ´ÖíºÍÑÏËàÔÚ¹úÄÚÉÍÕßÓÐÏÞ¡£ÓÐÈË˵Ů֪ʶ·Ö×ÓÍùÍù¡°too dry¡±£¬lessing´ó¸ÅÊÇλºÏ¸ñ´úÑÔ¡£
¾ÝÎÒÒ»ÅóÓÑ˵£¬ËûÃdzö°æÉç½ñÄê¸ÏÔÚŵ½±½ÒÏþÇ°È¥µÂ¹úÊéÕ¹´ò̽£¬ÅÊÁ˼¸¸ö¶í¹úÒÁÀʵĽá¹û¶¼Ã»Ï·£¬×îºóµ¹ÊÇѹÔÚ²Ö¿âÀXÄê·ç³¾ÆÍÆ͵ÄÀÏlessingÍϳöÀ´»»ÁË´²Ð¡°±»Ã桱---À´²»¼°ÖØ°æÁË£¬ÅûÒ»¼þ¾ÍÈ¥»á¿Í¹Ù°É¡£
- Re: Britain's Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Literature Prize (zt)posted on 10/13/2007
À³ÐÁµÄÊ鶼²»ºÃ¿´¡£²»µ«¸Éɬ£¬¶øÇÒ¶ÁÍêÁË»á¶ÔÈËÉú ÓÐÒ»ÖÖÑá¶ñ¸Ð---ËöËé¶øÎÞÁÄ¡£
dropin wrote:
Æäʵ£¬ËýµÄthe grass is singingÎåÊ®Äê´ú¸ÕдÍê¾Í±»¸´µ©Ò»±¾¿ÆÉú·Á˳öÀ´£¬½»¸øµ±Ê±ÒëÎijö°æÉç³ö°æ¡£¿ÉϧËýµÄ´ÖíºÍÑÏËàÔÚ¹úÄÚÉÍÕßÓÐÏÞ¡£ÓÐÈË˵Ů֪ʶ·Ö×ÓÍùÍù¡°too dry¡±£¬lessing´ó¸ÅÊÇλºÏ¸ñ´úÑÔ¡£ - posted on 10/19/2007
A congratulation and a reflection: for Doris Lessing
_______________
HER GOLDEN NOTEBOOKS
A sizeable proportion of Doris Lessing’s(b.1919) devotees embraced her 1962 classic The Golden Notebook as their bible. This book has become her most famous and influential work, the story of a writer's divided selves: political, literary and sexual; an account of the breakdown of tradition and the importance of socialism and, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, of voting labour. "Everything's cracking up,” she wrote. The book sold millions of copies and anticipated the social shifts of the sixties. Her fans still look to her as some banner-waving outrider for the feminist cause with some words of wisdom on every issue under the sun.
But Lessing has grown very contrary in her late adulthood and old age, making statements and writing novels that have confounded her fanbase. Lessing says she plays with ideas in her books. “People are always asking writers for definitive answers,” she states, “but that's not our job." When asked questions she uses mischievous evasion tactics and iconoclastic stylings, signs of a mind that is restless, but not wandering, wrote one critic.
Lessing states that in the late 1950s there was an enormous energy in society. In those years communism began to shred before the eyes of its committed adherents. Her book The Golden Notebook was about this shredding and about feminism. She says that her overriding concern when she writes is to get to the heart of some matter. "Books have been my life,” she states simply and with emphasis, “I was educated on them." She is not one of those writers who sits around worrying about posthumous fame. Much of her work has aspects that are autobiographical and she has written two volumes of straight autobiography, Under My Skin and Walking in the Shade.--Ron Price with thanks to “More is Lessing,” The Daily Telegraph, September 25, 2004.
The first world you remember
in the twenties and thirties has
disappeared as you say; even
socialism and liberalism, as
C.Wright Mills added back
in ’59,1 have lost their power
to be the centre and to hold
the fort for a beleaguered
humanity doing battle with
the phantoms of a profoundly,
wrongly informed imagination
and sinking deeper into a slough
of desponding gloom & doom.
And me, a child of that first 7 Year Plan
and the dawning of the Second Baha’i
Century—as you were marrying again,
finding communism and that new hope
for the world which would last only 15
years—one of your many abandoned
hopes which seems to still spring eternal
in your breast—as if through some
fortuitous conjunction of circumstances
we the people would be able to bend the
conditions of human life into conformity
with our prevailing human desires.
Sadly, I feel the foundations of your
confidence are frail containing some
desperation to believe, but not really
understanding the meaning and the
magnitude of the great turning point
of history we have passed and are
passing through. But, as you say, Doris,
writers do not really have answers, and
it is high time people stopped looking to
them for their oft’ illusory prescriptions.
1 C. W. Mills, The Sociological Imagination, 1959.
Ron Price
18 October 2007
qinggang wrote:
>
>
> By Bunny Nooryani
>
> Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- British author Doris Lessing, whose latest novel ``The Cleft" depicts a world without men, won the 2007 Nobel literature prize, the Swedish Academy said.
>
> Lessing, 87, is an ``epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny," the Stockholm-based academy said on its Web site today. ``The Golden Notebook," her breakthrough novel, ``belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th- century view of the male-female relationship," the academy said.
>
> The 10 million-krona ($1.56 million) prize was created in the will of Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901. Nobel, a Swede who invented dynamite, also set up awards for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry and peace.
>
> Turkish author Orhan Pamuk won last year's literature prize, for writing about the interplay and conflicts between different cultures. Past winners include Harold Pinter in 2005, Toni Morrison in 1993 and Saul Bellow in 1976. The award is formally handed over at a ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
>
> The Swedish Academy, which picks the winner on behalf of the Nobel Foundation, was founded in 1786 to develop the Swedish language. The academy keeps nominations for the literature prize secret for at least 50 years.
>
>
Please paste HTML code and press Enter.
(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation