Book excerpt: Since The Grass is Singing was published in 1950, Doris Lessing has commanded a widespread and heterogeneous readership. Written from a feminist political perspective, and employing diverse modes of critical analysis, the present volume, originally published in 1982, aims to combine detailed technical exploration of Lessing's work with a sense of this extraordinary writer's historical, political and personal development. The essays, placed in political and biographical context by the editor's introduction, span the entire length of Lessing's career, up to Canopus in Argos, and includes studies of A Man and Two Women, The Golden Notebook and The Children of Violence as well as an interview with David Gladwell, director of Memoirs of a Survivor.