British writer Doris Lessing, 87, has won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced Thursday.
The Academy cited her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."
Her 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.
Each Nobel Prize is worth $1.5 million and will be presented by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.
The first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme in 1901. Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk was the 2006 winner.
