Book description
The first book in the "Children of Violence" series, a
quintet of novels tracing the life of Martha Quest from her childhood in
colonial Africa through to old age in a post-nuclear Britain. The other
novels are "A Proper Marriage", "A Ripple from the
Storm", "Landlocked" and "The Four-Gated City".
'SHE LOOKED ACROSS THE FIELD TO THE DUMFRIES HILLS AND RE-FASHIONED
THAT UNUSED COUNTRY TO THE SCALE OF HER IMAGINATION. THERE AROSE, OVER
THE HARSH SCRUB AND THE STUNTED TREES, A NOBLE CITY, SET FOURSQUARE AND
COLONNADED, ITS CITIZENS GRAVE AND BEAUTIFUL, BLACK AND WHITE TOGETHER.'
The 'Children of Violence' series, a quintet of novels tracing the life
of Martha Quest from her childhood in Africa to a post-nuclear Britain
of AD 2000, first established Doris Lessing as a great radical writer.
In this first volume, Martha, the young rebellious daughter of a white
family, finds her coming of age to be a great struggle for freedom and
recognition. Intelligent and deeply compassionate, she sees the
unpalatable political and social realities of her world with an
extraordinary clarity. Martha's vision of a just society takes her
beyond the impoverished and rigid farming community to the city - an
ill-matched marriage her means of escape… 'I read the “Children of
Violence” novels and began to understand how a person could write about
the problems of the world in a compelling and beautiful way. And it
seemed to me that was the most important thing I could ever do.' Barbara Kingsolver
'The “Children of Violence” series gives an astounding compression of a
total, coherent vision, as if Doris Lessing knew all along where it
would end.' The Times 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'.
