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It outlines how her youthful experiences and readings helped form the sensibility behind Martha Quest, then follows her transition to London, marriage, and literary breakthrough. The discussion connects personal history to major novels and recurring themes of conscience, isolation, and 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and when was Doris Lessing born, according to the text?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"She was born of British parents in Kermanshah, Persia, on 22 October 1919.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How did Lessing’s early life in Rhodesia influence her development as a writer?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Her time in Rhodesia is described as her “lucky spiritual home,” shaping her responses to Africa’s living body and forming her reflective, independent reading and thinking.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What major change occurred when Lessing returned to Salisbury and later moved to London?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Her direction sharply turned outward into the settlers’ capital through her work and experiences, and London became the launching point where The Grass Is Singing was accepted and 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in I950and was immediately recognized as a novel of outstanding promisc.Most of her life up to the age of thirty was spent in Rhodesia and herfirst four novels and collections of stories all have African settings.Sincesettling in Britain she has shown that she possesses a far wider range ofvision,as well as a remarkable versatility of technique.She is a writer ofradical opinions,but has never allowęd herself to become a doctrinaire:her humanitarian sympathies embrace the whole sweep of the relationof the individual conscience to the collective.Her African books areconcerned not so much with ‘the colour problem'as with the humanproblem:'her main business is with the white settlers she knows best’,and her approach is often to contrast their natural and human imperfec-tions with their position of political or technological advantage.Theessay surveys at length her major five-volume novel cycle ‘The Childrenof Violence'and its exploration of 'the ideological“feel”of the mid-century'.It also discusses her view of the closely interrelated problemsof the responsibility of the writer,the life of the free wonan,and thespiritual isolation of modern humanity:these themes infuse such booksas The Golden Notebook and Briefing for a Desceut into Hell.Mrs Lessingis a novelist of exceptional power who has never hesitated to apply hergifts to difficult or intractable material:above all,in Michael Thorpe'sphrase,she possesses 'the unteachable quality of keeping the readermorally alive.  \nMichael Thorpe is Associate Professor of English in the University ofCalgary,Canada.He is author of Morning in Ankara and other poehIs,By the Niger and other poens,and of critical studies on Matthew Arnoldand Siegfried Sassoon,as well as editor of the latter’s The Old Cetury.He has also edited A Choice of Clouglis Verse and anthologies of modernprose and poems.  \nGodfrey Argent  \n# DORISLESSING\n\nbyMICHAEL THORPE  \nEdited by Ian Scott-Kilvert  \nTo Elin  \nPUBLISHED FORTHE BRITISH COUNCILBY LONGMAN GROUP LTD  \nLONGMAN GROUP LTDLongman House,Burnt Mill,Harlow,Essex  \nAssociated companies,branches andrepresentatives throughout the world  \nFirst published 1973CMichael Thorpe I973  \nPrinted in Great Britain by  \nF.Mildner &Sons,London,EC1R 5EJ  \nISBN o s82 O12309  \nCONTENTS  \nI.LIFE AND ATTITUDESSIⅡ.THE GRASS IS SINGING AND OTHER AFRICANSTORIES9  \nⅢ.‘CHILDREN OF VIOLENCE’I9IV.THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK25  \nV.BRIEFING FORA DESCENT INTO HELL;CONCLUSION29  \nA SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY35  \n# DORIS LESSING\n\nI.LIFE AND ATTITUDES  \nORIS LESSING was born of British parents in Kerman-shah,Persia,on 22 October I9I9.Her father wasthen managing a bank for the Imperial Bank ofPersia;in I924,disillusioned with business life,he made theromantic retreat to a farm on the high veld in Rhodesia.From Mrs Lessing's autobiographical and fictional writingsit is clear that,while the farm turned out to be no happyhaven for her parents,it became their imaginative daughter’slucky spiritual home.A'neurotic'child,she wasted nomore time than she could help in the classroom,at a conventschool in Salisbury.She left school at fourteen annd becamea nursemaid for a time before returning to the farm.LikeOlive Schreiner,her nineteenth-century forerunner asnovelist of Southern Africa and of an isolated,aspiringgirl's life—and her fictional heroine Martha Quest—shewas formed on the one hand by her intense response to theliving body of Africa,on the other by independent readingand reflection.  \nA deeply felt recollection of that early life occurs in thesecond chapter of Going Home,an account of her last visitto Rhodesia in I9s6(after which the Rhodesian govern-ment did her the honour of declaring her a prohibitedimmigrant).There she comments:‘The fact is,I don't liveanywhere;I never have since I left that first home on thekopje.I suspect more people are in this predicament thanthey know.It was a house lite","cbCairx5jVMnQUoh","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairx5jVMnQUoh","pdf",1499768,46,"English","# Contents\n## Life and Attitudes\n## The Grass Is Singing and Other African Stories\n## 'Children of Violence'\n## The Golden Notebook\n## Briefing for a Descent into Hell; Conclusion\n## A Select Bibliography","[{\"question\":\"Where and when was Doris Lessing born, according to the text?\",\"answer\":\"She was born of British parents in Kermanshah, Persia, on 22 October 1919.\"},{\"question\":\"How did Lessing’s early life in Rhodesia influence her development as a writer?\",\"answer\":\"Her time in Rhodesia is described as her “lucky spiritual home,” shaping her responses to Africa’s living body and forming her reflective, independent reading and thinking.\"},{\"question\":\"What major change occurred when Lessing returned to Salisbury and later moved to London?\",\"answer\":\"Her direction sharply turned outward into the settlers’ capital through her work and experiences, and London became the launching point where The Grass Is Singing was accepted and acclaimed.\"}]","Doris Lessing - Life and Attitudes - Critical introduction by Michael Thorpe | PDF",1789959072,71]