First published 1976
Doris Lessing turns her analytical eye inward in this autobiographical work. She traces her development as a writer from her early years in Southern Rhodesia through her emergence as a major literary voice in London. Lessing examines the forces that shaped her consciousness: colonial childhood, political awakening, motherhood, and the struggle to balance personal relationships with artistic ambition. She reflects on the intersection of individual experience and social upheaval, exploring how her Communist Party involvement and feminist insights influenced her fiction. The narrative moves between personal revelation and broader cultural observation as Lessing attempts to understand the woman behind the words. This self-portrait reveals an artist grappling with the tensions between commitment and independence, the demands of creativity and the pull of human connection.
Genres: biography, literary-fiction, 20th-century, autobiography
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: self-discovery, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London, Southern Rhodesia
Period: 20th-century
176 pages · Paperback · Harrap