Awards & Winners

Doris Lessing

Date of Birth 22-October-1919
Place of Birth Kermanshah
(Iran, Kermanshah Province)
Nationality United Kingdom
Also know as Doris May Lessing, Doris Tayler, Doris Lessing; et. al., Doris Lessin, Doris May Taylor, Doris May Tayler, Jane Somers
Profession Writer, Novelist, Author, Poet, Playwright, Biographer, Librettist
Quotes
  • The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.
  • That's what learning is. You suddenly understand something you understood all your life, but in a new way.
  • What is a hero without love for mankind.
  • This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we --we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.
  • Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.
  • Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.
  • Better Counsel comes overnight.
  • The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.
  • Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
  • A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.
  • It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.
  • Literature is analysis after the event.
  • It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.
  • In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.
  • Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.
  • Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.
  • Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!
  • If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.
  • What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate, that you don't need love when you do or that you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.
  • Pearls mean tears.
  • Laughter is by definition healthy.
Doris May Lessing CH was a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence, The Golden Notebook, The Good Terrorist, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives. Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the eleventh woman and the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2001, Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Awards by Doris Lessing

Check all the awards nominated and won by Doris Lessing.

2007


Nobel Prize in Literature
(that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny)

Nominations 2007 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Man Booker International Prize

2005


Nominations 2005 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Man Booker International Prize

2001


Prince of Asturias Award for Literature
(The creator of an imaginary, everyday world, and her characters, the offspring of contemporary society, are a faithful reflection of twentieth century morals.)

1998


Nominations 1998 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Neustadt International Prize for Literature

1997


Nominations 1997 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography/Autobiography Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949-1962

1985


Nominations 1985 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Man Booker Prize The Good Terrorist

1981


Nominations 1981 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Man Booker Prize The Sirian Experiments

1976


Prix Médicis étranger
Honored for : The Gold Coronet

1974


Nominations 1974 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Neustadt International Prize for Literature

1971


Nominations 1971 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Man Booker Prize Briefing for a Descent into Hell