'A fascinating mix of literary criticism, cultural history and memoir ... Highly enjoyable' Sunday Times How might we live more freely, and will we be happier or lonelier if we do? Rereading The Golden Notebook in her thirties, Lara Feigel discovered that Doris Lessing spoke directly to her as a woman, writer and mother in a way that no other novelist had done. Veering between admiration and fury at the choices Lessing made, Feigel conducts a dazzling investigation into the joys and costs of sexual, psychological, intellectual and political freedom. The result is this genre-defying book: at once a meditation on life and literature and a daring act of self-exposure.
Lara Feigel is a Reader in Modern Literature and Culture at King's College London. She is the author of Literature, Cinema and Politics, 1930-1945 and the editor (with Alexandra Harris) of Modernism on Sea: Art and Culture at the British Seaside and (with John Sutherland) of the New Selected Journals of Stephen Spender. She has also written journalism for various publications, including the Guardian, the Financial Times and Prospect. The Love-charm of Bombs (2013) and her most recent book, The Bitter Taste of Victory (2016), were both published to critical acclaim. Lara lives in West Hampstead, London. larafeigel.com @larafeigel
Title: Free Woman: Life, Liberation and Doris Lessing
Author: Feigel, Lara
ISBN: 9781408878576
Binding:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date: 2019-03-07
Number of Pages: 336
Weight: 0.2601 kg
An extraordinary meditation on what it means to be a clever, engaged woman two generations after Lessing ... A classical, precise use of language ... Most compelling ... Physically and intellectually intimate -- Patrick French * Guardian *
A fascinating mix of literary criticism, cultural history and memoir so exposing that it can almost make you blush. Feigel writes with singing clarity in prose that sometimes verges on the hypnotic. Her reimagining of Lessing's home and childhood in what was then Rhodesia is vivid and enthralling ... Absorbing and highly enjoyable -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times *
Free Woman is a valuable and brave contribution to a discussion that shows no sign of resolution -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer *
The most intriguing and certainly the bravest work of literary scholarship I have ever read -- Deborah Levy
Ironic, beautiful and rather moving -- Joanna Kavenna * Literary Review *
Free Woman is not a biography, but the same artistic process is at work: as a biographer, you think you are going to possess your subject, but they always end up possessing you. It's fertile ground, and Feigel a fine explorer. I really enjoyed this book. -- Sara Wheeler * Spectator *
Lara Feigel's Free Woman has taken on the formidable Doris for a new generation ... Feigel has the gift of converting complex thoughts into coherent sentences that delight * The Times *
Free Woman is worth reading as a piece of complicated thought, and one that's funny and sexy and frank, to boot -- Lily Meyer * NPR *
Part memoir, part biography and part literary criticism, this stylishly written book is as much about its author as it is about her free-thinking literary heroine ... [Feigel] has successfully re-interpreted the formidable Lessing for a new generation * The Lady *
Heartfelt, ambitious [...] a testament to the enduring power of The Golden Notebook * The Tablet *
Feigel has written a wonderful book in a critical genre in which she is a pioneer. There will, for sure, be more works of new biography . Let's hope they are as good as this one -- Praise for 'The Love-charm of Bombs' - John Sutherland * New Statesman *
Wholly engaging ... Free Woman is a brave book, written by and about a brave woman, Feigel's willingness to lay bare her own life allows the world of Doris Lessing, in all her complicated, contradictory, self-centred, generous genius, to come to life * Irish Times *
