Alfred and Emily: Doris Lessing's Masterful Blend of Fiction and Family History

Alfred and Emily is an intimate and revealing book by Doris Lessing, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature and author of The Grass is Singing and The Golden Notebook, that explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War.

In this profoundly moving book, Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War. In the fictional first half of Alfred and Emily, she imagines the happier lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war. This is followed by a piercing examination of their relationship as it actually was in the shadow of the devastating global conflict.

"Here I still am," says Lessing, "trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free." Triumphantly, with Alfred and Emily, she has done just that.

• A Unique Hybrid of Fiction and Memoir: Lessing splits the book into two powerful halves—first imagining the lives her parents might have lived, then confronting the stark reality of what was.
• The Great War’s Enduring Shadow: A searing account of how World War I irrevocably damaged two ordinary people, shaping a family’s destiny for generations.
• An Alternate History of the Heart: What if there had been no war? The book opens with a deeply felt novella that gives her parents the happiness they never had.
• A Nobel Laureate’s Most Personal Work: The acclaimed author of The Golden Notebook turns her formidable intellect and insight inward to understand her own origins.

Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards. She wrote more than thirty books—among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. She died in 2013.