Within a Sky Full of Earth

British novelist Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize for a body of work that delved into human relationships and inspired a generation of feminist writers, the Swedish Academy said on Thursday.The academy, which awards the prestigious 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.54 million) prize, called 87-year-old Lessing an "epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."
She was the 34th woman to win a Nobel and the 11th to take the literature award. The awards began in 1901.
"We're absolutely delighted and it's very well-deserved, of course," Lessing's long-time agent Jonathan Clowes said in a statement read to Reuters.
Lessing debuted as a novelist with "The Grass is Singing" in 1950, a book that examined the relationship between a white farmer's wife and her black servant.
Her 1962 novel "The Golden Notebook" was widely considered her breakthrough work.
"The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th century view of the male-female relationship," the academy said.
She was born to British parents in what was then known as Persia and is now Iran.
This was the fourth of this year's crop of Nobel prizes, handed out annually for achievements in science, literature, economics and peace.
[SOURCE: REUTERS] [PHOTO CREDITS: Stuart Heydinger © HULTON GETTY/STONE IMAGES • 1962]

MORE ON DORIS LESSING:
• Doris Lessing homepage created by Jan Hanford
• Doris Lessing at the Open Directory Project
• Doris Lessing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Doris Lessing at www.contemporarywriters.com
• Joyce Carol Oates on Doris Lessing
• 1988, 1992 audio interview with Doris Lessing by Don Swaim