1st Edition
Notebooks/Memoirs/Archives Reading and Rereading Doris Lessing
Since The Grass is Singing was published in 1950, Doris Lessing has commanded a widespread and heterogeneous readership. Written from a feminist political perspective, and employing diverse modes of critical analysis, the present volume, originally published in 1982, aims to combine detailed technical exploration of Lessing’s work with a sense of this extraordinary writer’s historical, political and personal development. The essays, placed in political and biographical context by the editor’s introduction, span the entire length of Lessing’s career, up to Canopus in Argos, and includes studies of A Man and Two Women, The Golden Notebook and The Children of Violence as well as an interview with David Gladwell, director of Memoirs of a Survivor.
Biographical Notes. Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction: Situating Reading Jenny Taylor 2. Reading The Golden Notebook in 1962 Jean McCrindle 3. Yesterday’s Heroines: On Rereading Lessing and de Beauvoir Elizabeth Wilson 4. Of Mud and Other Matter – The Children of Violence Nicole Ward Jouve 5. Towards a Narrative Analysis of A Man and Two Women Margaret Atack 6. The More Recent Writings: Sufism, Mysticism and Politics Ann Scott 7. ‘If You Mate a Swan and a Gander, Who Will Ride?’ Marsha Rowe 8. Doris Lessing: Exile and Exception Rebecca O’Rourke 9. Memoirs Was Made of This: An Interview with David Gladwell, Director of Memoirs of a Survivor Jenny Taylor. Select Bibliography of Lessing Criticism. Index.
Biography
Jenny Taylor
