Book description
A collection of Doris Lessing's charming and celebrated writings about cats.
Doris Lessing's love affair with cats began at a young age, when she
became intrigued with the semi-feral creatures on the African farm where
she grew up. Her fascination remained undiminished by the handsome
domesticated creatures who shared her flats and her life in London and
grew into real love with El Magnifico, the awkwardly lovable cat who in
his later years suffered the great indignity of becoming a three-legged beast.
Consisting of Doris Lessing's celebrated collection of stories,
'Particularly Cats and Rufus', and the poignant though unsentimental
memoir, 'The Old Age of El Magnifico', this book is a brilliant
evocation of feline existence. 'A distillation of everything that
makes her work such a joy to read…Lessing's intensely visual imagination
and coolly precise style fleshes out this feline life. A work of
exquisite tenderness and poignancy, thoroughly devoid of artifice,
over-elaboration or mawkish sentimentality…Wonderful.' Scotsman
'“Particularly Cats” is not really about cats at all, it's about real
characters.' Daily Mail
'An unsentimental and unwhimsical, but not unpartisan, study of
cat-and-human relationships. An entertaining read for both cat and
Lessing connoisseurs.' Observer Doris Lessing was the winner of the
2007 Nobel Prize for Literature and is one of the most important writers
of the second half of the twentieth century. Her first novel, 'The Grass
is Singing' was published in 1950, and since then her international
reputation has flourished. Among her other celebrated novels are 'The
Golden Notebook', 'The Summer Before the Dark', and 'Memoirs of a
Survivor'. Her most recent works include two volumes of autobiography,
'Under my Skin' and 'Walking in the Shade', her most recent novel is
'The Cleft'.
