''Martha Quest'' (

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

) is the second novel of British

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

-winner

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...

, and the first of the five-volume semi-autobiographical ''

Children of Violence The Children of Violence is a sequence of five semi-autobiographical novels by British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing: ''Martha Quest'' (1952), ''A Proper Marriage'' (1954), ''A Ripple from the Storm'' (1958), '' Landlocked'' (196 ...

'' series, which traces Martha Quest’s life to middle age. The other volumes in ''The Children of Violence'' are ''

A Proper Marriage ''A Proper Marriage'' (1954) is the second novel in British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing five volume, semi-autobiographical, series, ''Children of Violence''. The first volume is '' Martha Quest'' (1952), and the others are, '' ...

'' (1954), ''

A Ripple from the Storm ''A Ripple from the Storm'' (1958) is the third novel in British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing five volume, semi-autobiographical, series, ''Children of Violence''. The first volume is ''Martha Quest'' (1952), and the others are ...

'' (1958), ''

Landlocked A landlocked country is a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. There are currently 44 landlocked countries and 4 landlocked de facto states. Kazakhstan is the world's largest ...

'' (1965), and ''

The Four-Gated City ''The Four-Gated City'', published in 1969, is the concluding novel in British Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing's five-volume, semi-autobiographical series '' The Children of Violence'', which she began, in 1952, with ''Martha Quest''. In ...

'' (1969). ''Martha Quest'' is set in the former

British colony The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...

, now

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

, in southern Africa, where Lessing lived from 1925 until 1949. At the beginning of the novel Martha is fifteen years old, "living on an impoverished African farm with her parents; a girl of passionate vitality, avid for experience and for self-knowledge, bitterly resentful of the conventional narrowness of her home life". She then becomes a typist in the provincial capital where "she begins to encounter the real life she is so eager to experience and understand." Lessing's first novel ''

The Grass Is Singing Published in 1950, ''The Grass Is Singing'' is the first novel by the British author Doris Lessing. It takes place in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in southern Africa, during the 1940s and deals with the racial politics between whites and ...

'' published in 1950, also takes place in

, and, set during the 1940s, deals with the racial politics between the British settlers and Africans in that country.

Novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclope ...

, in a review of ''Martha Quest'', in the ''Sunday Times'', described Doris Lessing, as "one of the most powerfully equipped young novelists now writing."

Autobiographical novel

''Martha Quest'', like much of Lessing's fiction, is autobiographical. In it she draws "upon her childhood memories and her serious engagement with politics and social concerns", which "emerge out of her experiences in Africa", and ''Martha Quest'', like other of Lessing's works set in Africa, that were "published during the fifties and early sixties, decry the dispossession of black Africans by white colonials, and expose the sterility of the white culture in southern Africa". In 1956, Lessing's courageous outspokenness led her to being declared a prohibited alien in both Southern Rhodesia and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

."Biography", Doris Lessing.org
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References

Bibliography

Mohammad Kaosar Ahmed & Sultana Jahan''Seeing Herself through Literature: Martha Quest’s Reading Habit in Doris Lessing’s The Children of Violence''
* Frederick J. Solinge
''Nostalgia for the Future: Remembrance of Things to Come in Doris Lessing’s Martha Quest''
by, from ''ariel: A Review of International English Literature'', Volume 45, Number 3, July 2014, pp. 75–99 (subscription required) * Jessica Teisc
''Doris Lessing: Book by Book Profile''
* Lamia Taye

* Gayle Greene [https://books.google.com.au/books?id=glrpi8bRqVQC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=martha+quest+by+doris+lessing&source=bl&ots=61HsLO16JX&sig=zKBcJ25aEKheG9G-dkAqH-KpsIA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCTgUahUKEwjIrK_bkorHAhWEqqYKHc0CAX0#v=onepage&q=martha%20quest%20by%20doris%20lessing&f=false ''Doris Lessing: The Poetics of Change''] () * Laya Sedhain Mainal
''Relationship Between Women and Knowledge in Lessing´s The Summer Before the Dark, Martha Quest and A Proper Marriage''
(bachelor thesis, submitted at

Luleå University of Technology Luleå University of Technology is a Public Research University in Norrbotten County, Sweden. The university has four campuses located in the Arctic Region in the cities of Luleå, Kiruna, Skellefteå, and Piteå. With more than 19,000 students a ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martha Quest 1952 British novels Novels by Doris Lessing Novels set in Rhodesia Zimbabwean novels Michael Joseph books