Doris Lessing (Cyclopedia of World Authors)

Doris Lessing is one of the best known British novelists of her generation. Born Doris May Taylor, her parents were Alfred Cook Taylor, an English bank clerk, and Emily Maude McVeagh, his wartime nurse. The couple emigrated to Persia (later Iran) shortly after World War I, and in 1925 they moved with their daughter and younger son, Harry, to a farm in southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe). The family was always poor. The father, whose leg had been amputated, was a dreamer who became a cynic, and the mother was domineering but ineffective. They were socially and physically isolated,...

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