![]() The region was then named after Cecil Rhodes, the notorious imperialist and founder of the BSAC, which ruled the territory between 18. In the early 19th century, Dutch farmers began to advance through the region, seizing land from its black owners, and in the 1880s British settlers arrived with the British South Africa Company (BSAC). The Mutapa Kingdom was destroyed by Portuguese invaders in the early 17th century, and was succeeded by the Rozwi Empire, which expelled the Portuguese. In the pre-colonial era, Zimbabwe existed as a series of advanced trade states, including the Kingdom of Mapungubwe, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, and the Kingdom of Mutapa. The Grass is Singing takes place in Zimbabwe, which at the time the novel is set was a British colony known as Southern Rhodesia. She died at home in 2013, at the age of 94. In 2007, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Lessing declined an OBE and a Damehood due to their association with the British Empire. She went on to publish over 50 more novels, some under the pseudonym Jane Somers. The Grass is Singing was published in 1950. As a result, she was placed under surveillance by the British Intelligence Services for 20 years. Here, Lessing became active in communist, anti-racist, and anti-nuclear activism. In 1949 moved to London with her youngest son, armed with only £20 and the manuscript of her first novel, The Grass is Singing. Lessing divorced her first husband and married again, having another child and then a second divorce. Lessing left school at 13 and home at 15, moving to the capital of Southern Rhodesia, Salisbury (now Harare), where she worked as a telephone operator, got married, and had two children. However, he failed to succeed in this endeavor and the family remained poor. Shortly after her birth the family moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where Lessing’s father hoped to become wealthy through farming. She also talks about how these places are the future of literature – great writing comes from experiencing hardship and we in the western world have pretty easy lives.Doris Lessing was born in Iran to British parents her father, Captain Alfred Tayler, was a clerk at the Imperial Bank of Persia. It is fascinating! She discusses how in Africa people yearn for books and literature and education, even when they’re hungry and exhausted. My edition also included a supplement at the end with Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech. The Grass is Singing is a closely attuned depiction of the destructive power of socially-mandated hatred and expectations. Mary becomes a mere shell of herself – spending hours staring at the wall in a deep depression. Dick becomes nervous, frustrated and miserable, which doesn’t help his inability to complete anything he starts. Both Mary and Dick completely fall apart over the course of the novel. Both Mary and Dick are sympathetic characters, and both are fraught with ugly flaws especially, but not only, when it comes to race relations. women marry and bear children) at the time into a deeply psychological narrative. I was really impressed by the way Lessing weaves social criticism of race relations and social expectations (i.e. ![]() Lessing demonstrates right from the start of her career her amazing talent for intense prose that is thought-provoking and cuts like a knife. The Grass is Singing is a compact and powerful story that makes clear how destructive racial and gender inequities without becoming a treatise and nothing more. But it will expand your literary horizons and open your eyes. If you’re looking to read something light and fun, this isn’t it. In 1950s Southern Rhodesia, white rule is in full force, and the pressure of fulfilling her gender role leads Mary into her miserable situation in the first place. This heartbreaking story is embedded in a swirl of social, racial and gender tension and inequality. Over the years, both Mary and Dick weaken and become more and more frustrated and ill, leading up to the murder that frames the novel at its beginning and end. Mary marries Dick Turner and becomes suffocated and depressed by her new life on a poverty-stricken farm with a man she doesn’t love. This woman is Mary, who grew up poor (hating her father, watching her mother suffer) and as a young adult has a good secretarial job, and a decent single life. It chronicles one woman’s psychological disintegration in the context of poverty and white rule in 1940s and 1950s Southern Rhodesia. The Grass is Singing is Doris Lessing’s first novel, and it is fantastic.
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