‘Funny and heartbreaking… every word rings true.’
Claire Tomalin, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year

‘It is exhilarating to read. Not many lives are worth more than two long volumes, but Doris Lessing’s most certainly is.’
Literary Review

‘She is a true heroine. The passionate courage spoken by each page of her writing has been easily matched by her rollercoaster life. Through her memoirs she allows us to get a little closer to her, to a woman who has not only written, but has lived, at full throttle’ Guardian

‘A wise and major figure, a subtle voice, a writer for whom the past is a test of the present, as well as a place of memory and self-questioning.’ Malcolm Bradbury, Observer

‘Doris Lessing has changed the way we think about the world. Walking in the Shade records another crucial stage of her education, and ours.’ Blake Morrison, Independent on Sunday

‘Fiercely self-confident and fiercely self-critical, simultaneously warm and formidable; this is a highly idiosyncratic and utterly compelling mix.’ Sunday Telegraph

The second volume of one of the great autobiographies of the twentieth century.

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In 'Walking in the Shade' we move into the heyday of Lessing's career, sparked off by the international success of her first novel, 'The Grass is Singing'.
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A wonderful evocation of London's literary and political life during the 1950s and 1960s. Doris Lessing was at the very centre of the intellectual scene at the time, and knew many of its personalities and opinion-makers – Kenneth Tynan, John Osborne, E.P. Thompson, Bertrand Russell and many others.
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Perhaps the most frank and open book Doris Lessing has ever written. She writes about her involvement with communism, her love affairs, her depression at the ending of a relationship and her experience of bringing up a child on her own.

"Funny and heartbreaking…every word rings true."
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, 'Books of the Year'

It is exhilarating to read. Not many lives are worth more than two long volumes, but Doris Lessing's most certainly is."
LITERARY REVIEW