wbur.org
support wbur today!
Listen to this show
Doris Lessing
photo

Novelist Doris Lessing waited a long time for her Nobel. At almost 88, there’s never been an older winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, announced yesterday in Stockholm.

But Doris Lessing has always been on her own path. As a girl in colonial Rhodesia who broke out of convent school and made herself a writer. As a woman in the 1950s who smashed the mold of “little women” and insisted on full freedom, gender be damned.

Doris Lessing’s “The Golden Notebook” made her a hero to a generation of budding feminists. And she’s still writing strong.

This hour, On Point: the work of Doris Lessing.

Guests:

Judith Kegan Gardiner, English professor and director of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She’s author of “Rhys, Stead, Lessing, and the politics of empathy.”

Margaret Moan Rowe, professor of English at Purdue University and author of the critical study “Doris Lessing.”

Harvey Blume, literary critic and author.

 

Tags: , ,

 
 

Comments are closed.

On Point Today
Hour 2
Chemicals in Our Bodies
Monday, July 6, 2009 image

Scientists report that widely used chemicals — endocrine disruptors — are causing serious health problems in humans. We ask what the government is, and is not, doing about it.

Comments [35]
 
Hour 1
Sarah Palin’s Surprise
Monday, July 6, 2009 image

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s out-of-the-blue resignation. We ask what it means for her future — and for the GOP.

Comments [59]

Recent Shows
Crooked Still
Friday, July 3, 2009 image

Tunes from old Appalachia with a new bluegrass twist. The hit folk band “Crooked Still” plays for us in our studio.

Comments [6]
 
Week in the News
Friday, July 3, 2009 image

A U.S. offensive in Afghanistan. Al Franken heads to the Senate. Mark Sanford keeps talking. And unemployment keeps rising. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Comments [25]
On Point Blog
India, China and the Climate

The passage of the House climate bill – discussed in our first hour today – has been greeted with enthusiasm in many quarters. But in some ways, the real question is whether a global framework can be established in Copenhagen in December, when countries will negotiate a new international treaty to curb greenhouse gases. After all, America emits only [...]

More » | Comments [1]
 
Michael, Ed, and Farrah

The week-in-the-news roundtable always involves tough choices on sound clips – what to include, what to leave out. Amid all the pressing hard news, we often give a nod to a notable person who’s passed away. But this week brought, well, a ridiculous range of choices. So we gave a nod to them all in the roundtable today. And [...]

More » | Comments [2]
 
Planet Money, On Point — Your Questions!

On Wednesday night, June 24, On Point will tape a show before an audience in Boston with two stars of NPR’s “Planet Money,” Adam Davidson and David Kestenbaum. We need your online questions to put to them — about anything from the roots of the economic crisis to NPR’s coverage.
What’s your question about the [...]

More » | Comments [18]