Doris Lessing attends the reception hosted by Harpercollins and English Pen to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, at the Wallace Collection on January 30, 2008 in London.
Prolific, award-winning author Doris Lessing died in her sleep on Saturday night, her publisher said. She was 94.
Lessing, who authored more than 50 works fiction, nonfiction and poetry ranging in subject, won the Nobel prize in 2007 and became the eldest recipient at age 88. Among her well-known works are The Golden Notebook, Memoirs of a Survivor and The Grass is Singing.
Though Lessing was born in Iran and raised in the African bush in Zimbabwe, she was a London resident and luminary for more than half a century.
The Swedish Academy hailed her as an “epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny.”
Despite heaps of praise about her work, Lessing was humbled — and quite amused — when she found out she won the Nobel Prize:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBODHFBZ8k]