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. Her most recent novel is The Cleft.