Doris Lessing was born in Persia of British parents in 1919. She spent her childhood on her father's farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia. After leaving school at 14, she worked in a variety of jobs including typist, au pair and telephonist. Upon arrival in England in 1949, her first novel, The Grass is Singing, was published (and was subsequently filmed in 1981). In 1952, the publishing of Martha Quest marked the first in her sequence of five novels, Children of Violence.
The French translation of The Golden Notebook (1962) won the Prix Medici in 1976. Lessing has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times: Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971), The Sirian Experiments (1981) and The Good Terrorist (1985) and won the W. H. Smith Award in 1985. Her most recent books include the novels Love Again and Ben, in the World and two volumes of her autobiography, Under My Skin and Walking in the Shade. Today's abridged extract is from The Sweetest Dream, which Lessing has described as "not volume three of my autobiography because of possible hurt to vulnerable people".
It is published this week by HarperCollins at £16.99 in UK.