2007 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Doris Lessing. The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 11 October 2007.

The citation

The citation reads: "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

The laureate

Doris Lessing was born in 1919 in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran).

Why it matters

The British writer, born in Persia and raised in Southern Rhodesia, is best known for The Golden Notebook. At 87 she is the oldest person to receive the literature prize.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.