More than 3,000 books belonging to Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing are to be donated to Zimbabwe’s principal public library in the capital, Harare.
The bequest from the writer who died, aged 94, last November includes biographies, histories, reference books, poetry and fiction. Many libraries in Zimbabwe have no budget to purchase new books.
"It is most heartening to hear that Doris Lessing, with this magnificent gesture, has taken her love for this country beyond her death,” Bernard Manyenyeni, the mayor of Harare, told the Herald newspaper.
Born in Tehran, Doris Lessing grew up in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), living there from 1924 to 1949. Her family settled there to farm maize.
In October 2007 when she had been living for many years in the UK, the writer returned to her home in West Hampstead, North London, carrying her shopping, to be greeted by reporters and camera crews. "Oh, Christ," she said, on learning that she had won the Nobel prize.
