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The
2003 Award
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The Sweetest Dream by Doris Lessing
Nominated by:
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Publisher of Nominated Edition: Flamingo ISBN 0002261618 |
| the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors. |
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ABOUT
THE BOOK
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| This
story of a family, spanning most of the twentieth century, has its fulcrum
in the Sixties, that contradictory and embattled decade about which argument
becomes louder every day. The young of that time, bursting old bonds and
demanding freedom, were seen by some of their elders not at all as they
saw themselves, as romantic idealists, but as deeply damaged people. Old
Julia, the clan's matriarch, knows why. 'You can't have two dreadful wars
and then say "That's it, and now everything will go back to normal."
They're screwed up, our children, they are the children of war.'
Remarkable
women, Julia and Frances, grandmother and mother, fight for 'the kids'
against obstacles, the worst being Comrade Johnny. Here is an unforgettable
picture of a character only recently departed from our scene. 'The revolution
comes before personal matters' is his dictum, as he deposits discarded
wives and hurt children in the accommodating house whose emotional centre
is always the extendable kitchen table, that essential prop of the Sixties,
where they all sit around through the evenings, eating, joking, boasting
about their shoplifting, debating the violent ideologies of the time,
which take some of them out to the Third World, one to a south African
village dying of AIDS. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
| Doris Lessing is one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Her most recent books include the novels Mara and Dann and Ben, In the World, and the two volumes of autobiography, Under My Skin and Walking in the Shade. She lives in north London. |
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Find out more about the author on the following websites: |
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