The Cleft - Hardcover

Lessing, Doris May

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060834862 ISBN 13: 9780060834869

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2007

Synopsis

In an ancient society solely populated by women whose childbirth cycles are controlled by the moon, community harmony is thrown into jeopardy by the unheralded birth of a boy, whose existence brings into awareness the role of gender in virtually every aspect of daily life. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

‘Lessing skilfully manipulates multiple perspectives...a bold, inventive and challenging book from a writer who continues to enlighten and astonish as she approaches her tenth decade.’ Independent

'A work of elegance, wit, humour and mystery. It may even be considered, one day, as one of her finest works...This is a deeply serious novel, but it's also humane, warm and witty...Doris Lessing, in her ninth decade, is writing fiction that is as hypnotic, perceptive and original as any wunderkind a quarter her age' Glasgow Herald

‘The author's reach continues to thrill...there's witchery in the Old She yet.’ Daily Telegraph

‘A narrative with the compelling stamp of Lessing's late tales.’ The Times

‘Doris Lessing writes movingly of the human desire for change...she conveys a powerful belief in the impermanence of any situation in which human beings find themselves and the paradoxically unchanging nature of human relations.’ Observer

‘Lessing's engaging tale is told with the simplicity of an aural history committed to memory.’ New Statesman

‘Her prose is pleasingly incantatory...the novel has a pleasing gravitational pull on a purely poetic level.’ Metro

‘Lessing writes, as ever, with such calm and assured authority...a fascinating, at times disturbing book; one can't imagine any other writer bringing it off.’ The Scotsman

'Lessing has always observed human behaviour with the dispassionate eye of a Martian naturalist...Her prose thrives on a bigness which comes from her imaginative origins on the Veld of her African childhood, and her rangy plots take vast, fast strides over the horizon, collapsing lifetimes like pocket telescopes ...”The Cleft” is a return to...the Tempest-like condensation of themes that has always enlarged her work' Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Doris Lessing is one of the most important writers of the twentieth century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007. Her first novel, 'The Grass is Singing', was published in 1950. Among her other celebrated novels are 'The Golden Notebook', 'The Fifth Child' and 'Memoirs of a Survivor'. She has also published two volumes of her autobiography, 'Under my Skin' and 'Walking in the Shade'. Doris Lessing died on 17 November 2013 at the age of 94.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0060834862
• ISBN 13: 9780060834869
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 260