Never to be Forgotten:Doris Lessing 1919-2013

Author Doris Lessing died today at the age of 94. She wrote in many styles throughout her long career, espousing leftist ideology and an interest in Sufism. She also wrote science fiction, which she preferred to call space fiction. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, she is one of only a handful of authors who worked in the genre to be so honored, including William Golding and Jose Saramago.

Her best known works in the science fiction field are two multiple book series, Canopus in Argos and Children of Violence. While she was definitely considered an "important" writer, a distinction that very rarely is bestowed on people who write speculative fiction, she championed the field of science fiction as the home of some of the best social fiction of the age. In particular, she singled out Blood Music by Greg Bear and called him a great writer.

So often when someone dies in old age, all the pictures of them in the obits are from the past decade or so. (Exceptions are made for movie stars known best when they were young and beautiful.) I found this picture of Ms. Lessing when she was much younger and quite pretty, a nice reminder that the eminent are not born at the age of sixty and doomed just to get older from there.

The author Doris Lessing died today. She is never to be forgotten.