'The first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone'

Winter in July

Winter in July

Doris Lessing

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007, Doris Lessing grew up in Africa – and returns to that troubled, misunderstood continent in this searing collection of short stories.

‘I believe that the chief gift from Africa to writers, white and black, is the continent itself, its presence which for some people is like an old fever, latent always in their blood; or like an old wound throbbing in the bones as the air changes. … Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, among other creatures, in a large landscape.’

Written with all the angry compassion of first-hand knowledge, these stores reveal Africa in the raw – an Africa unknown to the vast majority of Europeans. Here is a vivid, unforgettable evocation of its sounds and smells, its stark power and savage grandeur, its agony and ultimate tragedy.

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