Doris Lessing: a model for every writer coming from the back of beyond

Inventive, brave, down-to-earth – she never hedged her bets or pulled her punches, doing everything with all her heart

• 
• • Margaret Atwood
  • The Guardian, Monday 18 November 2013

'If there were a Mount Rushmore of 20th-century authors, Lessing would be carved on it.' Photograph: Kieran Doherty/Reuters

Wonderful Doris Lessing has died. You never expect such rock-solid features of the literary landscape to simply vanish. It's a shock.
I first encountered Lessing on a park bench in Paris in 1963. I was a student, living on baguettes, oranges and cheese, as one did, and suffering from a stomach ailment, as one did. My pal Alison Cunningham and I had been barred from our hostel during the day, so Alison was soothing my prostrate self by reading from The Golden Notebook, which was all the rage among such as us. Who knew we were reading a book that was soon to become iconic?
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And in The Independent:
Boyd Tonkin on Doris Lessing: A woman perpetually in flight comes to rest at last 

And in The Bookseller:

Tributes paid to Doris Lessing Publishers and writers have paid tribute to Doris Lessing, who has died at the age of 94. Nicholas Pearson, her editor...