Doris Lessing
A British novelist, poet, playwright, and Nobel laureate, renowned for her diverse body of work that explored post-colonial themes, feminist issues, and psychological complexities. Her groundbreaking novel, The Golden Notebook, became a feminist classic. Lessing's writing often delved into societal and political issues, challenging conventional norms and offering profound insights into the human condition across different genres, from realism to science fiction, cementing her legacy as one of the 20th century's most significant literary figures.
Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier year. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in the blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.
Set in colonial Rhodesia, this psychological novel explores the fraught relationship between a white woman and her Black servant. When Mary Turner’s fragile life on a remote farm spirals into violence and tragedy, Lessing exposes the corrosive effects of racism, isolation, and repressed emotion. The Grass is Singing is a haunting debut that critiques colonial society and gender dynamics with unflinching honesty.