UK: British novelist Doris Lessing is underwhelmed at winning the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature

British novelist Doris Lessing has been awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature for a body of work that looked unflinchingly at society's ills and inspired a generation of feminist writers. The 87-year-old writer was underwhelmed at being honoured by the Swedish Academy, which awards the coveted 10 million Swedish crown (1.54 million U.S. dollar) prize. Lessing, who was shopping when the news of her Nobel broke and learned of it from a Reuters Television reporter, reacted with barely concealed contempt for the panellists in Stockholm responsible for her award. She said: "They're going to say over there 'Oh God, we've got to give it to that woman at some time, I suppose.' I mean, am I supposed to get elated or excited or what? I have won all the prizes in Europe, every one, so you know, I've won them all. So okay the Nobel. This is, as I say, a royal flush. It's very good." She added caustically: "I'm going to have to think of nice things to say." The outspoken writer said she hoped the manners of the panellists had improved, claiming that she had been told explicitly by the prize-givers four decades ago that she would never be considered for an award because they disliked her. She said: "They told me a long time ago that they didn't like me and I would never get it. This was at least 40 years ago, maybe it's less, 35 years. They said 'You will never get the Nobel prize because we don't like you', and they sent a special official to tell me so. I mean, the whole thing is so graceless, stupid, and bad mannered. Bad mannered, that's what they are." The oldest person to win a Nobel for literature, Lessing was only the 34th female laureate since the prizes began in 1901 and the 11th woman to take the literature award. Lessing said she was wary of people sending her "begging letters" and that she just wanted to get on with writing her book. Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Lessing's work had been of great importance to other writers and to the broader field of literature. Born to British parents in what was then Persia, now Iran, on October 22, 1919, Lessing was raised in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. She went to a convent boarding school at the age of seven and later moved to a girls' school in Salisbury, Rhodesia. Lessing ended her formal schooling at 14 and worked variously as a nanny, telephonist, office worker and journalist. Her debut as a novelist came in 1950 with "The Grass is Singing", a book that examined the relationship between a white farmer's wife and her black servant. Lessing's criticism of the governments in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia led her to be banned from both countries in the 1950s. The author said she had recently completed a new novel on the horrors of war, but was unsure how it would be received. "I don't know how it will do, I've just sent it to my agent. He says the last 200 pages are unbearably painful. Good. Let it be unbearably painful so people can know a bit more about what wars can really be like." This was the fourth of this year's crop of Nobel prizes, handed out annually for achievements in science, literature, economics and peace.

ITN Source | October 12, 2007

Tags:. .economics. .annually. .painful. .considered. .southern