Editing Doris Lessing (section)

==Life==
===Early life===
Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in [[Kermanshah]], [[Qajar Iran|Persia]], on 22 October 1919, to Captain Alfred Tayler and Emily Maude Tayler (née McVeagh), both British subjects.<ref name="englishbloom">{{cite news|last=Hazelton|first=Lesley|title=Golden Notebook' Author Lessing Wins Nobel Prize|work=Bloomberg|date=11 October 2007|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anexY5Z5sGgw|access-date=11 October 2007|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131024030417/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=anexY5Z5sGgw&refer=home|archive-date=24 October 2013}}</ref> Her father, who had lost a leg during his service in [[World War I]], met his future wife, a nurse, at the [[Royal Free Hospital]] in London where he was recovering from his [[amputation]].<ref name="broken">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/klein-lessing.html|title=Doris Lessing|access-date=11 October 2007|author= Carole Klein|work=The New York Times}}</ref><ref name="scifirefa">{{cite web |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dlessing.htm |title=Doris Lessing |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080608133357/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dlessing.htm |archive-date=8 June 2008 |url-status=dead  }}</ref> The couple moved to Persia, for Alfred to take a job as a clerk for the [[Imperial Bank of Persia]].<ref name="space fiction">{{cite news|last =Hazelton| first=Lesley|title=Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and 'Space Fiction'|work=The New York Times|date=25 July 1982|url=http://mural.uv.es/vemivein/feminismcommunism.htm| access-date=11 October 2007 }}</ref><ref name="bbcref1">{{cite news| title=Author Lessing wins Nobel honour|date=11 October 2007|url =http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7039100.stm|work=BBC News|access-date=11 October 2007}}</ref>

In 1925 the family moved to the British colony of [[Southern Rhodesia]] (now Zimbabwe) to farm maize and other crops on about {{convert|1000|acre}} of bush that Alfred bought. In the rough environment, his wife Emily aspired to lead an [[Edwardian]] lifestyle. It might have been possible had the family been wealthy; in reality, they were short of money and the farm delivered very little income.<ref name="dobref"/>

As a girl Doris was educated first at the [[Dominican Convent High School, Harare|Dominican Convent High School]], a Roman Catholic [[convent]] [[Single-sex school|all-girls school]] in the Southern Rhodesian capital of Salisbury (now [[Harare]]).<ref name="UnderMySkin" /> Then followed a year at [[Girls High School, Harare|Girls High School]] in Salisbury.<ref name="UnderMySkin">{{cite book |last1=Lessing |first1=Doris |title=Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 |url=https://archive.org/details/undermyskinvolum01less |url-access=registration |date=1994 |publisher=Harper Collins |location=London |isbn=000255545X|page=[https://archive.org/details/undermyskinvolum01less/page/147 147]}}</ref> She left school at age 13 and was self-educated from then on. She left home at 15 and worked as a [[nursemaid]]. She started reading material that her employer gave her on politics and sociology<ref name="scifirefa"/> and began writing around this time.

In 1937 Doris moved to Salisbury to work as a [[Switchboard operator|telephone operator]], and she soon married her first husband, civil servant Frank Wisdom, with whom she had two children (John, 1940–1992, and Jean, born in 1941), before the marriage ended in 1943.<ref name="scifirefa"/> Lessing left the family home in 1943, leaving the two children with their father.<ref name = "telegraph"/>

=== Move to London; political views ===
After the divorce, Doris's interest was drawn to the community around the [[Left Book Club]], an organisation she had joined the year before.<ref name="dobref">{{cite web|url=http://www.dorislessing.org/biography.html|title=Biography|access-date=11 October 2007|year=1995|work=A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook and Under My Skin|publisher=[[HarperCollins]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Lessing | first=Doris | title=A Home for the Highland Cattle and the Antheap |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5twsK0hVK2MC&q=doris+lessing+left+book+club+1942&pg=PA27| publisher=Broadview Press | publication-place=Petersborough | date=2003-08-20 | isbn=978-1-55111-363-0 | page=27}}</ref> It was here that she met her future second husband, [[Gottfried Lessing]]. They married shortly after she joined the group, and had a child together (Peter, 1946–2013), before they divorced in 1949. She did not marry again.<ref name="scifirefa"/> Lessing also had a love affair with RAF serviceman John Whitehorn (brother of journalist [[Katharine Whitehorn]]), who was stationed in Southern Rhodesia, and wrote him ninety letters between 1943 and 1949.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Flood|first1=Alison|title=Doris Lessing donates revelatory letters to university|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/oct/22/doris-lessing-letters|work=The Guardian|date=22 October 2008}}</ref>

Lessing moved to London in 1949 with her younger son, Peter, to pursue her writing career and socialist beliefs, but left the two older children with their father Frank Wisdom. She later said that at the time she saw no choice: "For a long time I felt I had done a very brave thing. There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children. I felt I wasn't the best person to bring them up. I would have ended up an alcoholic or a frustrated intellectual like my mother."<ref>[http://mag.newsweek.com/2010/05/06/lowering-the-bar.html "Lowering the Bar. When bad mothers give us hope"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150430141440/http://mag.newsweek.com/2010/05/06/lowering-the-bar.html |date=30 April 2015 }}, ''[[Newsweek]]'', 6 May 2010. Retrieved 9 May 2010.</ref>

As well as [[Nuclear disarmament|campaigning against nuclear arms]], she was an active opponent of [[apartheid]], which led her to being banned from South Africa and Rhodesia in 1956 for many years.<ref name=obit /> In the same year, following the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Soviet invasion of Hungary]], she left the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Miller|first=Stephen|title=Nobel Author Doris Lessing Dies at 94|url=https://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304439804579203804274045712|access-date=23 November 2013|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=17 November 2013}}</ref> In the 1980s, when Lessing was vocal in her opposition to Soviet actions in Afghanistan,<ref>[http://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0114/dbless.html "Doris Lessing blows the veil of romanticism off Afghanistan"], ''The Christian Science Monitor'', 14 January 1988.</ref> she gave her views on feminism, communism and science fiction in an interview with ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref name="space fiction"/>

On 21 August 2015, a five-volume secret file on Lessing, built up by both [[MI5]] and [[MI6]], was made public and placed in [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]].<ref>Shirbon, Estelle, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160307164336/http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-mi5-lessing-idUKKCN0QP2DY20150820?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews "British spies reveal file on Nobel-winner Doris Lessing"], Reuters, 21 August 2015.</ref> The file, which contains documents that are redacted in parts, shows Lessing was under surveillance by MI5 and MI6 for around twenty years, from the early-1940s onwards. Her associations with communist organisations and political activism were reported to be the reasons for the surveillance of Lessing.<ref>Norton-Taylor, Richard, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/21/mi5-spied-on-doris-lessing-for-20-years-declassified-documents-reveal "MI5 spied on Doris Lessing for 20 years, declassified documents reveal"], ''The Guardian'', 21 August 2015.</ref>

Disaffected, and turning away from Marxist political philosophy, Lessing became increasingly absorbed with mystical and spiritual matters, devoting herself especially to the [[Sufism|Sufi]] tradition.<ref>Hajer Elarem, 2015. "A Quest for Selfhood: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Female Identity in Doris Lessing's Early Fiction", academic paper. Université de Franche-Comté.</ref>

===Literary career===
At the age of fifteen, Lessing began to sell her stories to magazines.<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://www.dorislessing.org/biography.html|title = Biography (From the pamphlet: ''A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin'', HarperPerennial, 1995)|last = Lessing|first = Doris}}</ref> Her first novel, ''[[The Grass Is Singing]]'', was published in 1950.<ref name="dobref" /> The work that gained her international attention, ''[[The Golden Notebook]]'', was published in 1962.<ref name="bbcref1"/> By the time of her death, she had published more than 50 novels, some under a pseudonym.<ref>{{Cite news|title = Doris Lessing dies aged 94|date = 17 November 2013|url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/17/doris-lessing-dies-94|last = Kennedy|first = Maev|work = The Guardian}}</ref>
[[File:DorisLessing1984.jpg|left|thumb|Lessing in 1984]]
In 1982 Lessing wrote two novels under the literary pseudonym Jane Somers to show the difficulty new authors face in trying to get their work printed. The novels were rejected by Lessing's UK publisher but later accepted by another English publisher, [[Michael Joseph (publisher)|Michael Joseph]], and in the US by [[Alfred A. Knopf]]. ''The Diary of a Good Neighbour''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dorislessing.org/thea.html |title=The Diary of a Good Neighbour by Doris Lessing|publisher=Doris Lessing|access-date=13 August 2012}}</ref> was published in Britain and the US in 1983 and ''If the Old Could'' in both countries in 1984,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dorislessing.org/ifthe.html|title=If the Old Could by Doris Lessing|website=www.dorislessing.org}}</ref> both as written by Jane Somers. In 1984 both novels were republished in both countries ([[Viking Books]] publishing in the US), this time under one cover, with the title ''The Diaries of Jane Somers: The Diary of a Good Neighbour and If the Old Could'', listing Doris Lessing as author.<ref>Hanft, Adam. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-hanft/when-doris-lessing-became_b_68118.html "When Doris Lessing Became Jane Somers and Tricked the Publishing World (And Possibly Herself In the Process)"]. ''The Huffington Post'', 10 November 2007. Updated 25 May 2011. Retrieved 7 September 2017.</ref>

Lessing declined a [[Dame (title)|damehood]] (DBE) in 1992 as an honour linked to a non-existent Empire; she had previously declined an OBE in 1977.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/oct/22/doris-lessing-letters|last=Flood|first=Alison|title=Doris Lessing donates revelatory letters to university|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=22 October 2008|access-date=15 October 2012}}</ref> Later she accepted appointment as a [[Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour]] at the end of 1999 for "conspicuous national service".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/lessingd2.shtml|title=Doris Lessing interview|access-date=11 October 2007|format=Audio|publisher= BBC Radio|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071014024848/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/lessingd2.shtml|archive-date= 14 October 2007}}</ref> She was also made a Companion of Literature by the [[Royal Society of Literature]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rslit.org/companions.htm|title=Companions of Literature list|access-date=11 October 2007|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070707111745/http://www.rslit.org/companions.htm|archive-date = 7 July 2007}}</ref>

In 2007 Lessing was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref name="winsprise">Rich, Motoko and Lyall, Sarah. [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/world/11cnd-nobel.html?ex=1349841600&en=fe6db48996e06f03&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink "Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize in Literature"]. ''The New York Times''. Retrieved 11 October 2007.</ref> She received the prize at the age of 88 years 52 days, making her the oldest winner of the literature prize at the time of the award and the third-oldest Nobel laureate in any category (after [[Leonid Hurwicz]] and [[Raymond Davis Jr.]]).<ref>Hurwicz won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 2007 aged 90. Davis received the 2002 Physics Prize at 88 years 57 days. Their birth dates are shown in their biographies at the [http://www.nobelprize.org Nobel Prize website], which states that the awards are given annually on 10 December.</ref><ref>Pierre-Henry Deshayes. [http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22571058-663,00.html "Doris Lessing wins Nobel Literature Prize"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013083314/http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22571058-663,00.html |date=13 October 2007 }}. ''Herald Sun''. Retrieved 16 October 2007.</ref> She was also only the eleventh woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature by the [[Swedish Academy]] in its 106-year history.<ref>Reynolds, Nigel. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071012091706/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/11/nlessing111.xml "Doris Lessing wins Nobel prize for literature"]. ''The Telegraph''. Retrieved 15 October 2007.</ref> In 2017, just 10 years later, her Nobel medal was put up for auction.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=6118889 |title=Valuable Books and Manuscripts |publisher=Christie's |date=13 December 2017 |access-date=7 December 2017}}</ref><ref name=flood2017>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/07/doris-lessing-nobel-prize-literature-medal-goes-up-for-auction |title=Doris Lessing's Nobel medal goes up for auction |work=The Guardian |author=Alison Flood |date=7 December 2017 |access-date=7 December 2017}}</ref> Previously only one Nobel medal for literature had been sold at auction, for [[André Gide]] in 2016.<ref name=flood2017/>

===Illness and death===
During the late-1990s Lessing had a stroke,<ref name=progressive/> which stopped her from travelling during her later years.<ref name=Verongos>{{cite news|title=Doris Lessing, Novelist Who Won 2007 Nobel, is Dead at 94|author=Helen T. Verongos|date=17 November 2013|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/books/doris-lessing-novelist-who-won-2007-nobel-is-dead-at-94.html|work=The New York Times|access-date=17 November 2013}}</ref> She was still able to attend the theatre and opera.<ref name=progressive>{{cite web|url=http://www.dorislessing.org/theprogressive.html|author=Raskin, Jonah|title=The Progressive Interview: Doris Lessing|work=The Progressive (reprint)|publisher=dorislessing.org|date=June 1999|access-date=17 November 2013}}</ref> She began to focus her mind on death, for example asking herself if she would have time to finish a new book.<ref name=obit>{{cite news|title=Doris Lessing: Nobel Prize-winning author whose work ranged from social and political realism to science fiction|author=Peter Guttridge|date=17 November 2013|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/doris-lessing-nobel-prizewinning-author-whose-work-ranged-from-social-and-political-realism-to-science-fiction-8945459.html|work=The Independent|access-date=17 November 2013}}</ref><ref name=progressive /> She died on 17 November 2013, aged 94, at her home in [[West Hampstead]], London, of kidney failure, [[sepsis]] and a chest infection,<ref>{{Cite ODNB |last=Maslen |first=Elizabeth |date=1 January 2017 |title=Lessing [née Tayler], Doris May (1919–2013), writer |id=108270|freearticle=y}}</ref> predeceased by her two sons, but was survived by her daughter, Jean, who lives in South Africa.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24979129 "Author Doris Lessing dies aged 94"], BBC. Retrieved 17 November 2013.</ref>

She was remembered with a [[humanist celebrant|humanist funeral service]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://humanism.org.uk/2018/04/24/humanists-uk-launches-first-ever-funeral-tribute-archive/|title=Humanists UK launches first ever funeral tribute archive|work=[[Humanists UK]]|access-date=23 October 2010|date=24 April 2018}}</ref>