Doris Lessing’s obituaries, as much as her writings, bear witness to the great turbulences of the twentieth century. How many of us spent our childhood in two countries which have both since changed their names? But ‘exotic’ was the last word Lessing would have used to describe herself: ‘I am 85, an Englishwoman (with Scottish and Irish tinctures) living in London‘, she insisted in one tart correspondence in our letters page.

‘A Radical Imagination’ – Doris Lessing in the Spectator

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