Book description
A fascinating novel of love and ecology from one of the twentieth
century's greatest writers.
Doris Lessing returns to the world of visionary fiction, first visited
in her Canopus in Argos quintet of novels in the 1980s, and in 'Mara and
Dann', of which this is a sequel, in 1999.
The earth's climate has changed - it is colder than ever before - and
Dann, four in the first book, is now grown up and a general, and the man
to whom everyone looks for guidance and leadership.
Doris Lessing's novel charts his adventures across the frozen wastes of
the north, a journey that will eventually lead to the discovery of a
secret library. 'This is an unsettling but compelling novel - like a
nihilistic version of “The Lord of the Rings” with a deeply flawed,
Shakespearean tragic hero at its centre.' Financial Times
'Lessing pierces the heart with the half quotations that Dann's scribes
scribble down as the books fall to dust in their hands…Lessing has much
wisdom to impart although she is astute enough not to preach but to pose
some unsettling questions.' Maggie Gee, Sunday Times
'It is so well done, written with such zest, imagination, sympathy and
intelligence, that my prejudice against the sort of novel it is was soon
disarmed…a piece of compelling narrative, wonderfully imagined.' Alan
Massie, Spectator
'Lessing engages the reader constantly…the plot is complicated,
deliciously so…full of unobtrusive wisdom, the book is restless with
curiosity and shrewd in its reading of human nature.' Scotsman
'Lessing's new novel is as unsettling as anything she has ever
written.' Independent
'This visionary novel from one of the distinguished writers of the past
60 years is, fundamentally, an impassioned warning: dystopia could be
the future.' Daily Mail 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'.
