DORIS LESSING, author of The Golden Notebook, won the Nobel Prize for literature yesterday. She was praised by the judges for her “scepticism, fire and visionary power”.

British writer Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature, it was announced today.

About 3,000 people have been cleared to receive the first payouts from an Austrian fund set up to compensate survivors of the Holocaust, and another 3,000 should be approved shortly.

WRITING is hard work, Doris Lessing told the 500 people who gathered to hear her read on Saturday. “And keeping writing is even harder.”