Doris Lessing and the Forming of History

Explores Doris Lessing's innovative engagement with historical change in her own lifetime and beyond
The death of Nobel Prize-winning Doris Lessing sparked a range of commemorations that cemented her place as one of the major figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century world literature. This volume views Lessing's writing as a whole and in retrospect, focusing on her innovative attempts to rework literary form to engage with the challenges thrown up by the sweeping historical changes through which she lived. The 12 original chapters provide new readings of Lessing's work via contexts ranging from post-war youth politics and radical women's writing to European cinema, analyse her experiments with genres from realism to autobiography and science-fiction, and draw on previously unstudied archive material. The volume also explores how Lessing's writing can provide insight into some of the issues now shaping twenty-first century scholarship including trauma, ecocriticism, the post-human, and world literature as they emerge as defining challenges to our own present moment in history.
Key Features
Offers a critical overview of the full range of Lessing's work, setting the agenda for future study of her writingProvides new readings of an unprecedented range of Lessing's writing, including previously unstudied archive material, landmark novels such as The Golden Notebook, drama and reportage, essays, memoirs and short storiesSituates Lessing in relation to new literary and cultural contexts, including the nineteenth-century novel-series, cinema, and post-war youth cultureRelates Lessing's work to contemporary theoretical debates on post-humanism, trauma, ecocriticism, radical women's writing and world literature

“The breadth and freshness of these essays, introduced by the co-editors' fine overview of Doris Lessing's expressions of historical change through literary forms, reinforces the author's undiminished appeal to contemporary scholars and readers. Exploring formal elements of Lessing's work--characterization, humour, readership, and film and dream analogues--along with politics and history, human evolution, climate change, and time travel, these essays are timely, ambitious, and intellectually engaging.”

--Roberta Rubenstein, American University
The essays in this new collection... energize Lessing's engagement with several vectors of crisis deeply relevant for urgent contemporary challenges.--Lara Choksey, University of Warwick "Doris Lessing Studies Issue 35"

Kevin Brazil is Lecturer in Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century British Literature, University of Southampton.

David Sergeant is Lecturer in English post-1850 at Plymouth University.

Tom Sperlinger is Reader in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol.

'The breadth and freshness of these essays, introduced by the co-editors' fine overview of Doris Lessing's expressions of historical change through literary forms, reinforces the author's undiminished appeal to contemporary scholars and readers. Exploring formal elements of Lessing's work ? characterisation, humour, readership, and film and dream analogues ? along with politics and history, human evolution, climate change and time travel, these essays are timely, ambitious and intellectually engaging.'Roberta Rubenstein, American UniversityExplores Doris Lessing's innovative engagement with historical change in her own lifetime and beyondThe death of Nobel Prize-winning Doris Lessing sparked a range of commemorations that cemented her place as one of the major figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century world literature. This volume views Lessing's writing as a whole and in retrospect, focusing on her innovative attempts to rework literary form to engage with the challenges thrown up by the sweeping historical changes through which she lived. The 12 original chapters [sounds like there's some old material as well! What about: In 12 newly commissioned contributions, the book ...] provide new readings of Lessing's work via contexts ranging from post-war youth politics and radical women's writing to European cinema, analyse her experiments with genres from realism to autobiography and science-fiction, and draw on previously unstudied archive material. The volume also explores how Lessing's writing can provide insight into some of the issues now shaping twenty-first-century scholarship - including trauma, ecocriticism, the post-human and world literature - as they emerge as defining challenges to our own present moment in history.Kevin Brazil is a Lecturer in Late Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century British Literature at the University of Southampton.David Sergeant is a Lecturer in English post-1850 at Plymouth University.Tom Sperlinger is a Reader in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol.Cover image: Doris Lessing, 1981

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