Putting the Questions Differently

African Stories (Michael Joseph; New York: Simon & Schuster, Popular Library, 1965).

1965

Landlocked, the fourth volume of Children of Violence (MacGibbon and Kee; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966).

1966

The Black Madonna and Winter in July (Panther).

1967

Particularly Cats (Michael Joseph; New York, Simon & Schuster).

1969

The Four-Gated City, the fifth volume of Children of Violence (MacGibbon and Kee; New York, Knopf).

1971

Briefing for a Descent into Hell (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1972

The Story of a Non-Marrying Man and Other Stories (Jonathan Cape); American title The Temptation of Jack Orkney (New York, Knopf).

1973

The Summer Before the Dark (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1974

The Memoirs of a Survivor (Octagon; New York: Knopf, 1975).

1976

Received the French Prix Medicis for Foreigners.

1978

Stories (New York, Knopf).

1979

Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta, the first volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1980

The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five, the second volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1981

The Sirian Experiments, the third volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1982

The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, the fourth volume of Canopus in Argos: Archives (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf). Received the Shakespeare Prize of the West German Hamburger Stiftung and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.

1983

Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1984

The Diaries of Jane Somers (New York: Random House), two novels originally published under the pseudonym Jane Somers as The Diary of A Good Neighbor and If the Old Could… (Michael Joseph, 1983–84; New York, Knopf).

1985

The Good Terrorist (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1986

Received the W. H. Smith Literary Award.

1987

Received the Palmero Prize and the Premio Internazionale Mondello.

1988

The Fifth Child (Jonathan Cape; New York, Knopf).

1992

African Laughter (New York, HarperCollins). London Observed (HarperCollins); American title The Real Thing: Stories and Sketches (HarperCollins).

Talking as a Person Roy Newquist (#ulink_2241fc07-18b9-5b5e-b2b5-c1ba82260b2f)

Roy Newquist’s interview originally appeared in Counterpoint (Rand McNally, 1964). Copyright © 1964 by Roy Newquist. Reprinted with permission.

Newquist: When did you start writing?

Lessing: I think I’ve always been a writer by temperament. I wrote some bad novels in my teens. I always knew I would be a writer, but not until I was quite old – twenty-six or -seven – did I realize that I’d better stop saying I was going to be one and get down to business. I was working in a lawyer’s office at the time, and I remember walking in and saying to my boss, “I’m giving up my job because I’m going to write a novel.” He very properly laughed, and I indignantly walked home and wrote The Grass Is Singing. I’m oversimplifying; I didn’t write it as simply as that because I was clumsy at writing and it was much too long, but I did learn by writing it. It focused upon white people in Southern Rhodesia, but it could have been about white people anywhere south of the Zambezi, white people who were not up to what is expected of them in a society where there is very heavy competition from the black people coming up.

Then I wrote short stories set in the district I was brought up in, where very isolated white farmers lived immense distances from each other. You see, in this background, people can spread themselves out. People who might be extremely ordinary in a society like England’s, where people are pressed into conformity, can become wild eccentrics in all kinds of ways they wouldn’t dare try elsewhere. This is one of the things I miss, of course, by living in England. I don’t think my memory deceives me, but I think there were more colorful people back in Southern Rhodesia because of the space they had to move in. I gather, from reading American literature, that this is the kind of space you have in America in the Midwest and West.

I left Rhodesia and my second marriage to come to England, bringing a son with me. I had very little money, but I’ve made my living as a professional writer ever since, which is really very hard to do. I had rather hard going, to begin with, which is not a complaint; I gather from my American writer-friends that it is easier to be a writer in England than in America because there is much less pressure put on us. We are not expected to be successful, and it is no sin to be poor.

Newquist: I don’t know how we can compare incomes, but in England it seems that writers make more from reviewing and from broadcasts than they can in the United States.