Doris Lessing, "[the] epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny," according to NobelPrize.org., wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, 2007.
Perhaps my most favorite writer of all times, whose books have impacted and shaped me like no other literary work has done. The Golden Notebook my one and only and all time bible to free womanhood is perhaps one of the greatest analysis of the forces, events and phenomena that shaped the post modern world depicting conflict at every level of fragmented society as we desperately fight and resist the limitations of human condition.
It makes me extremely, ecstatically happy to learn that the prize went to her, one of the greatest visionaries of out times.
For full stories, read here and here.
* Photograph courtesy to CBC.ca
4 comments:
Nika, I thought of you instantly when I heard this news. I second the congratulations to DL.
I tried to borrow The Golden Notebook a year ago from AUA but could not find the book on the shelves, it has probably been misplaced. Thanks for reminding. Need to go back one of these days :)
First time I read The Golden Notebook was the copy that I borrowed from AUA. I went through the book way too fast, liked it, returned it and never thought about it until about a year later, when i was browsing the bookstore at Dulles Airport, trying to kill time, before my flight back to Yerevan. I saw the book, bought it, read it, re-read it so many times that i could quote certain passages from the book. I remember I used to wake up in the mornings with some nagging thought, and saying to myself "I have to read that passage from the book..." Since then I have read and reread quite a few works by Doris Lessing, and although her writing is always good, nothing truly matches the Golden Notebook - there is so much power and energy in that book. It's interesting to read what the author says about the book years later, her frustrations about how the book is perceived as and fragmented to narrow prism of feminism, or a book on color, or on communism - whereas she wrote it as a whole, as an expression of the reality she had lived in and was living in during and after WWII. I do not have a link to her interviews, but I'm sure if you browse the net, you'll find quite a lot on it.
AUA also used to have another one of her great works, my second favorite - The Four Gated City, the last one from Children of Violence series. If you happen to find it, I would strongly recommend you to read it - it IS a part of a sequel, but you'll be equally impacted without having read the previous three. I used to skip school just to stay at home and read the Four Gated City.
If you do not find it, let me know - I'd be more than happy to send you a copy - might take a while, but last time I checked, the mail does get where it's supposed to get in Yerevan, so you should get it, either way.
If you do find it - enjoy.
I'd give everything to be able to read the book for the first time :)
Happy birthday today to DL!
(This, quite incidentally, means that my father shares his birthday with a Nobel Laureate author, which is kind of cool.)
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