Putting the Questions Differently. Doris Lessing

Joseph; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966).

      1962

      The Golden Notebook (Michael Joseph; New York, Simon & Schuster). Play with a Tiger: A Play in Three Acts (Michael Joseph).

      1963

      A Man and Two Women (MacGibbon and Kee; New York: Simon & Schuster, Popular Library).

      1964

      African Stories (Michael Joseph; New York: Simon & Schuster, Popular Library, 1965).

      1965

      Landlocked, the fourth volume of Children of Violence (MacGibbon and Kee; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966).

      1966

      The Black Madonna and Winter in July (Panther).

      1967

      Particularly Cats (Michael Joseph; New York, Simon & Schuster).

      1969

      The Four-Gated City, the fifth volume of Children of Violence (MacGibbon and Kee; New York, Knopf).

      1971

      Briefing for a Descent into Hell (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1972

      The Story of a Non-Marrying Man and Other Stories (Jonathan Cape); American title The Temptation of Jack Orkney (New York, Knopf).

      1973

      The Summer Before the Dark (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1974

      The Memoirs of a Survivor (Octagon; New York: Knopf, 1975).

      1976

      Received the French Prix Medicis for Foreigners.

      1978

      Stories (New York, Knopf).

      1979

      Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta, the first volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1980

      The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five, the second volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1981

      The Sirian Experiments, the third volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1982

      The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, the fourth volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf). Received the Shakespeare Prize of the West German Hamburger Stiftung and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.

      1983

      Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1984

      The Diaries of Jane Somers (New York: Random House), two novels originally published under the pseudonym Jane Somers as The Diary of A Good Neighbor and If the Old Could… (Michael Joseph, 1983–84; New York, Knopf).

      1985

      The Good Terrorist (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1986

      Received the W. H. Smith Literary Award.

      1987

      Received the Palmero Prize and the Premio Internazionale Mondello.

      1988

      The Fifth Child (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

      1992

      African Laughter (New York, HarperCollins). London Observed (HarperCollins); American title The Real Thing: Stories and Sketches (HarperCollins).

       Talking as a Person Roy Newquist

      

      

      Roy Newquist’s interview originally appeared in Counterpoint (Rand McNally, 1964). Copyright © 1964 by Roy Newquist. Reprinted with permission.

      Newquist: When did you start writing?

      Lessing: I think I’ve always been a writer by temperament. I wrote some bad novels in my teens. I always knew I would be a writer, but not until I was quite old – twenty-six or -seven – did I realize that I’d better stop saying I was going to be one and get down to business. I was working in a lawyer’s office at the time, and I remember walking in and saying to my boss, “I’m giving up my job because I’m going to write a novel.” He very properly laughed, and I indignantly walked home and wrote The Grass Is Singing. I’m oversimplifying; I didn’t write it as simply as that because I was clumsy at writing and it was much too long, but I did learn by writing it. It focused upon white people in Southern Rhodesia, but it could have been about white people anywhere south of the Zambezi, white people who were not up to what is expected of them in a society where there is very heavy competition from the black people coming up.

      Then I wrote short stories set in the district I was brought up in, where very isolated white farmers lived immense distances from each other. You see, in this background, people can spread themselves out. People who might be extremely ordinary in a society like England’s, where people are pressed into conformity, can become wild eccentrics in all kinds of ways they wouldn’t dare try elsewhere. This is one of the things I miss, of course, by living in England. I don’t think my memory deceives me, but I think there were more colorful people back in Southern Rhodesia because of the space they had to move in. I gather, from reading American literature, that this is the kind of space you have in America in the Midwest and West.

      I left Rhodesia and my second marriage to come to England, bringing a son with me. I had very little money, but I’ve made my living as a professional writer ever since, which is really very hard to do. I had rather hard going, to begin with, which is not a complaint; I gather from my American writer-friends that it is easier to be a writer in England than in America because there is much less pressure put on us. We are not expected to be successful, and it is no sin to be poor.

      

      Newquist: I don’t know how we can compare incomes, but in England it seems that writers make more from reviewing and from broadcasts than they can in the United States.

      Lessing: I don’t know. When I meet American writers, the successful ones, they seem to make more on royalties, but then they also seem to spend much more.

      I know a writer isn’t supposed to talk about money, but it is very important. It is vital for a writer to know how much he can write to please himself, and how much, or little, he must write to earn money. In England you don’t have to “go commercial” if you don’t mind being poor. It so happens that I’m not poor anymore, thank goodness, because it’s not good for anyone to be. Yet there are disadvantages to living in England. It’s not an exciting place to live; it is not one of the hubs of the world, like America, or Russia, or China. England is a backwater, and it doesn’t make much difference what happens here, or what decisions are made here. But from the point of view of writing, England is a paradise for me.

      You see, I was brought up in a country where there is very heavy pressure put on people. In Southern Rhodesia it is not possible to detach yourself from what is going on. This means that you spend all your time in a torment of conscientiousness. In England – I’m not saying it’s a perfect society, far from it – you can get on with your work in peace and quiet when you choose to withdraw. For this I’m very grateful – I imagine there are few countries left in the world where you have this right of privacy.

      

      Newquist: