Doris May Lessing, born to British parents in Iran, moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1925 and later settled in London, England in 1949. A prolific writer, her oeuvre includes the notable works The Grass Is Singing, the Children of Violence series, The Golden Notebook, The Good Terrorist, and the Canopus in Argos: Archives series.

Lessing's literary contributions were recognized with the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, where she was lauded as an "epicist of the female experience" who critically examined a divided civilization. She received the David Cohen Prize in 2001 for her lifetime's achievement in British Literature and was named the fifth greatest British writer since 1945 by The Times in 2008.

Before embarking on her writing career, Lessing endured a challenging upbringing and personal life. Her father, a World War I veteran and bank clerk, and her mother, a former nurse, moved the family to Southern Rhodesia with the hope of prosperity through maize farming. Unfulfilled by domestic life and driven by intellectual ambition, Lessing left her family in pursuit of personal freedom and self-education, mirroring the independence and resolve that would characterize her literary heroines.