Doris Lessing, the author of more than fifty titles in fiction and winner of the most prestigious prize in writing, the Noble Prize, has passed away in her London home. The writer of such titles as The Golden Notebook, Memoirs of a Survivor and The Summer Before the Dark, passed away on Sunday, 17 November in her home, aged 94, various press outlets have reported.

Although the news of her death is still fresh, the tributes for the fallen author have already begun flooding in, as people react in shock and quiet acceptance at her passing. Biographer and personal friend of Lessing, Michael Holroyd, remembered her as a "outstandingly rich and innovative" writer, recalling (via The Guardian), "Her themes have been universal and international. They ranged from the problems of post-colonial Africa to the politics of nuclear power, the emergence of a new woman's voice and the spiritual dimensions of 20th-century civilisation. Few writers have as broad a range of subject and sympathy. She is one of those rare writers whose work crosses frontiers, and her impressively large output constitutes a chronicle of our time. She has enlarged the territory both of the novel and of our consciousness."


Her editor at HarperCollins/4th Estate, Nick Pearson, said, "I adored her. When I took over looking after her books she had a fairly formidable reputation, and the first time I went to meet her I was terrified, but she was always completely charming to me. She was always more interested in talking about the other writers on our list, what the young writers were working on – and reading – than in talking about her own books."

Tributes have continued to fly in, with social media sites already becoming awash with comments dedicated to the beloved author. HarperCollins' chief executive in the UK, Charlie Redmayne, added to the tributes saying, "Doris Lessing was one of the great writers of our age. She was a compelling storyteller with a fierce intellect and a warm heart who was not afraid to fight for what she believed in. It was an honour for HarperCollins to publish her."


Born in Iran in October 1919 before moving to Zimbabwe whilst still a child, Lessing moved to London after publishing her first novel, The Grass is Singing, in 1950 and lived their for the rest of her life. She became the oldest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, when she won the award for her life's work aged 88.