Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing was born in Persia, and grew up on a bush farm in Southern Rhodesia. Her unusual childhood may have been the ideal background for a writer; in the last 50 years, she's written at least that many volumes of short stories, novels, essays, poetry and plays, and her writings have dealt with everything from colonialism and Communism to sexual politics and romantic love. Her early Children of Violence novels were seen as groundbreaking, The Golden Notebook galvanized a generation of women, and her Canopus in Argos series brought science fiction to a new level. Let's find out what "one of the finest writers of the 20th century" would pack in her cultural survival kit.
Her list:

1. Kendal Mint Cake
2. A Machete (a sharp steel blade)
3. Cassette recorder with soothing tapes like The Moonlight Sonata, Bechet, Bolero, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
4. An Amateur telescope
5. Artist's materials
6. Anthology of World Poetry
7. Some exercise books and biros (pencils)
8 A drum

WNYC archives id: 42770