Doris Lessing,the uninhibited and outspoken novelist who won the 2007 Nobel Prize for a lifetime of writing that shattered convention,both social and artistic,died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 94. Lessing produced dozens of novels,short stories,essays and poems,drawing on a childhood in the central African bush,the teachings of Eastern mystics and years of involvement with grass-roots Communist groups. She embarked on dizzying and at times stultifying literary experiments. Her breakthrough novel,The Golden Notebook,a structurally inventive and loosely autobiographical tale,is her best-known work. The 1962 book was daring in its day for its frank exploration of the inner lives of women who,unencumbered by marriage,were free to raise children,or not,and pursue work and their sex lives as they chose. The book dealt openly with topics like menstruation and orgasm,as well as with the mechanics of emotional breakdown. Her editor at HarperCollins,Nicholas Pearson,said Sunday that it had been a handbook for a whole generation. As a writer,from colonial Africa to modern London,she scrutinised relationships between men and women,social inequities and racial divisions. As a woman,she pursued her own interests and desires,professional,political and sexual. Seeking what she considered a free life,she abandoned her two small children. It was this figure,10 years later,who approached her house in sensible shoes to find journalists gathered at her door waiting to tell her that she had won the Nobel Prize for literature. Oh Christ! she said upon hearing the news. I couldnt care less. The Nobel announcement called her the epicist of the female experience,who with skepticism,fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny. Among the major influences on her thought,Ms. Lessing named Communism and Sufism. In between she embraced the radical psychiatry of R D Laing. She also counted Central Africa,World War I and her reading. Lessings survivors include her daughter Jean as well as two granddaughters.
