Flight
Author: Doris Lessing
"Flight" is a 1957 short classic story by Doris Lessing. It deals with an old man who is against his eighteen-year-old granddaughter getting married, bringing him into conflict with not only her and her fiance, but also his daughter, who was herself married even younger and whose other three daughters have already been married.
About the author
Born in 1919, Doris Lessing was the first child of a
British banker working in Persia. When
she was five, the family moved to Africa. After two short-lived marriages she moved to England where her first
novel, the Grass is Singing was published. This novel tells of the oppression of the blacks by the white settlers
in Rhodesia and was an immediate best seller.
She has won many prizes and continues to be published.
She died on 17 November 2013, aged 94, at her home in London.
Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature.
In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist
of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has
subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny". Lessing was the eleventh
woman and the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.