The Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing's first novel is a taut and tragic portrayal of a crumbling marriage,set in South Africa during the years of Arpartheid.
Set in Rhodesia,'The Grass is Singing'tells the story of Dick Turner,a failed white farmer and his wife,Mary,a town girl who hates the bush and viciously abuses the black South Africans who work on their farm. But after many years,trapped by poverty,sapped by the heat of their tiny house,the lonely and frightened Mary turns to Moses,the black cook,for kindness and understanding.
A masterpiece of realism,'The Grass is Singing'is a superb evocation of Africa's majestic beauty,an intense psychological portrait of lives in confusion and,most of all,a fearless exploration of the ideology of white supremacy.
Publisher: HarperCollins PublishersISBN: 9780007498802Number of pages: 208Weight: 150 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 13 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Original and striking...full of those terrifying touches of truth,seldom mentioned but instantly recognised.'New Statesman
'Doris Lessing responds more passionately than most writers to people or situations: often she responds with hate or rancour,but always with passion. In "The Grass is Singing",you can feel the dynamo-like throb of a formidable talent; by its side,most novels of 1950 look like crochet-work.'The Times
'"The Grass is Singing"focuses on the blighted life of a woman whose spirit is destroyed by a disastrous marriage and by an environment to which she couldn't respond. More than any other white African writer of her generation,Doris Lessing is aware of the seductive cruelty of colonialism,and is one of our strongest,fiercest voices against injustice,racism and sexual hypocrisy.'Independent on Sunday
Doris Lessing
One of fiction's great polymaths,over a prolific career Doris Lessing took on memoir,post-modern fiction,poetry,libretto and science fiction and produced work of dazzling fearlessness. Debuting in 1950 with The Grass is Singing, Lessing's work was often a reflection of her own political belief and experience,whether via her hugely personal masterwork The Golden Notebook or the Sufi-inspired science fiction of her Canopus in Argos: Archives. Amongst her many literary achievements,in 2007 Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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