As news spread through the Frankfurt Book Fair Thursday afternoon that HarperCollins author Doris Lessing had just won the Nobel Prize for literature, her publisher´s booth filled up with journalists brandishing cameras and notebooks and colleagues offering hugs and congratulations. CEO Jane Friedman wiped away a tear, fretted that they had none of Lessing´s books on hand to display and joked that she needed to comb her hair.
For just a few minutes in Frankfurt today, the search for the next big thing became secondary to celebrating the the 87-year-old British writer´s decades of achievement. "It´s such wonderful news," said Friedman. "She has been an icon for women for a lifetime."
Asked what the win meant for HC, Friedman, whose association with Lessing goes back 35 years to when they were both with Knopf, said the real point is what it will mean for the author. But then she added, "For us, of course, it means we will sell more books."
Lessing is the author of more than 50 books, her most recent, a novel titled The Cleft, was published by HarperCollins this year. The book offers an alternative feminist history in which the human race originates with women and the introduction of the male presence into the world creates havoc.
Lessing´s win came as a surprise to her publisher, as well as to bookmaker Ladbrokes, which takes bets on the literary world's most prestigious award. Philip Roth was among those favored to win, as was Italian novelist and essayist Claudio Magris and Australian poet Les Murray.
The oldest person ever to win the Nobel Prize, Lessing was born to British parents who raised her in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy cited her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."
Lessing´s debut novel was The Grass Is Singing in 1950. Golden Notebook, according to the Academy, was her breakthrough novel in 1962. She has also written The Summer Before Dark in 1973, The Fifth Child in 1988 along with the semiautobiographical "Children of Violence" series, which is set largely in Africa.
The Nobel comes with a $1.5 million prize. It will be presented by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.
