THE FIFTH CHILD Doris Lessing
Tertulias literarias Literatur Solasaldiak Literary Circle
Errenteriako Biblioteka 2019 / 03 / 20
Doris Lessing Doris Lessing was born in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran). Her father was a bank clerk and her mother a nurse. Her family later moved to Southern Rhodesia in 1925. Doris Lessing attended a convent school and a girls' school, but ended her studies at age 14 and moved from home. She went on to work as a nursemaid, telephonist, stenographer, and journalist, and published a few short stories. Lessing moved to London in 1949. She became involved in politics and social issues and actively took part in the campaign against nuclear weapons. Doris Lessing was married twice and had three children. Doris Lessing has written around 50 books. Her most experimental novel, 'The Golden Notebook', from 1962, is a study of a woman's psyche and life situation, the lot of writers, sexuality, political ideas, and everyday life.
Selected Works Novels ·(1950) The Grass Is Singing ·(1962) The Golden Notebook ·(1974) Memoirs of a Survivor ·(1988) The Fifth Child ·(2000) Ben in the World
Non-Fiction ·(1957) Going Home ·(1987) Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
·(2008) On Not Winning the Nobel Prize
The fifth child The Fifth Child is a contemporary gothic horror story—centered on the birth of a baby who seems less than human—probes society’s unwillingness to recognize its own brutality. Harriet and David Lovatt, parents of four children, have created an idyll of domestic bliss in defiance of the social trends of late 1960s England. While around them crime and unrest surge, the Lovatts are certain that their oldfashioned contentment can protect them from the world outside—until the birth of their fifth baby.
Reviews ·“Lessing's latest novel is profoundly disquieting, not only for the
story it tells but also for the message it conveys. The implications of this slim, gripping work are ominous.” (Publishers Weekly)
·“The Fifth Child is written in sentences so stark and simple they
make Hemingway’s seem ornate. (...) The reason The Fifth Child is so perfect for a book club is not just its brevity and whip-sharp lucidity, however, but also the fact that it offers a cheeky, wicked counterpoint to the lives of the typical member.” (The Telegraph)
Interesting links ·Doris Lessing, a retrospective: http://www.dorislessing.org
·Nobel Prize Web: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2007/lessing/facts/
·The Paris Review, Doris Lessing, The Art of Fiction No.102: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2537/doris-lessing-the-art-of-fictionno-102-doris-lessing
·Our coordinator´s blog (ENG/ESP) https://donostiabookclub.blogspot.com