The Memoirs of a Survivor

A compelling vision of a disorienting and barbaric future from Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Many years in the future, city life has broken down, communications have failed and food supplies are dwindling. From her window a middle-aged woman – our narrator – watches things fall apart and records what she witnesses: hordes of people migrating to the countryside, gangs of children roaming the streets. One day, a young girl, Emily, is brought to her house by a stranger and left in her care. A strange, precocious adolescent, drawn to the tribal streetlife and its barbaric rituals, she is unafraid of the harsh world outside, while our narrator retreats into her hidden world where reality fades and the past is revisited …

Reviews

'Original and astonishing … Brilliant persuasive and circumstantial in its imagination, so that each step towards barbarism seems completely necessary.' New Statesman

'For some years and books now [we] have been reading Doris Lessing to find out what's going on – what is happening to our society's nervous system and how it affects the way we live with each other … She is one of those acute emotional intelligences whose stories provide keys to our personal dilemmas.’ Guardian

‘An extraordinary and compelling meditation about the enduring need for loyalty, love and responsibility in an unprecedented time.’ Time

About the author

Doris Lessing is one of the most important writers of the twentieth century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007. Her first novel, 'The Grass is Singing', was published in 1950. Among her other celebrated novels are 'The Golden Notebook', 'The Fifth Child' and 'Memoirs of a Survivor'. She has also published two volumes of her autobiography, 'Under my Skin' and 'Walking in the Shade'. Doris Lessing died on 17 November 2013 at the age of 94.