It’s the birthday of Doris Lessing (1919-2013), whose novels and stories broke literary ground in their daring explorations of racism, women’s inner lives, sex, mental illness, and all manner of upheaval known to humankind. Lessing was best known for her semi-autobiographical and experimental novel The Golden Notebook (1962) and was awarded the Nobel in Lit in 2007.

Here’s Lessing: she was strongly feminist in some ways, railed against feminism in others, and hated being called a feminist. So there’s that. (I can say this because she’s safely dead now.)

Lessing was born to British parents in Kermānshāh, Persia (Iran), but raised in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) from the age of five. Her parents were so disappointed that she was a girl that the doctor who delivered her had to name her. (Wow. I mean, wow.) Her mother was a real martyr about motherhood; one wonders if this colored Lessing’s later experience of motherhood, which wasn’t exactly where she shone (stay tuned). Lessing was eventually sent away from the family farm to boarding school, and then a convent. She married in 1939, already pregnant, tried to make arrangements for an abortion several times, and was relieved when ultimately the pregnancy was too advanced. She found motherhood just exhausting and so turned to Communism, like you do. She had a second child in 1943, soon said, “That’s enough of that,” and left her husband and children. She divorced, remarried, had another son (okay, I don’t get that), divorced again, and moved to London with that second son just a few years after WWII. She published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, in 1950, about a white farmer and his wife in Rhodesia and their African servant. A five-novel series, Children of Violence, followed (1952-1969), during which time The Golden Notebook also appeared. She went on to write many novels and stories, including—controversially—a science fiction series, Canopus in Argos (1979-83).

In the 80s—you have to hear this—Lessing tricked her publishers by submitting two manuscripts under the pseudonym Jane Somers, and her publishers immediately rejected both. THEY REJECTED DORIS LESSING. The fools. She was of course making a point about how difficult it was for new writers to get noticed. The books, The Diary of a Good Neighbor and If the Old Could, were eventually published elsewhere under that pseudonym but got little attention. Other works include The Good Terrorist (1985), The Sweetest Dream (2001), and Alfred and Emily (2008), a mix of fiction and memoir about her parents. Upon being told by journalists that she had won the Nobel, Lessing said, “Oh, Christ! I couldn’t care less.”

The only Lessing novel I’ve read is The Fifth Child (1998), which was absolutely fascinating and which will almost certainly prevent you from having a fifth child. Ten life points to anyone who posts about a Doris Lessing novel or short story they’ve read.

Have a pleasantly surprising Monday, maybe something involving a rare bird sighting or finding a lost key, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.