Lessing, 88, wins literature Nobel prize

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”.

Ms Lessing, 11 days short of her 88th birthday, is the oldest choice for a prize that usually goes to authors in their 50s and 60s. Although she is widely celebrated, she has received little attention in recent years and has been criticised as strident and eccentric.

Even Ms Lessing apparently was not expecting to win, the academy’s permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said.