Doris Lessing was a prolific Nobel Prize winning writer, who penned more than fifty books. It is difficult to slot her works under a single heading for they include many genres - novels (literary and science fiction novels), autobiographies, short stories, plays and essays, and address various topics such as racial inequalities, women’s liberation, communism, and ethics with great candor. Martha Quest, the protagonist of her ‘Children of Violence’ series of novels, is very much a reflection of herself. She invited criticism for creating a character who "tries to live with the freedom of a man". In actual life too, she left her two young children behind with their father so she could pursue her literary ambitions. She switched to Science fiction with ‘Briefing for a Descent into Hell’, ‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’, ‘Memoirs of a Survivor’, and ‘The Cleft’. She felt that “in science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time”. Her other novels include ‘The Grass Is Singing’, ‘The Good Terrorist’, ‘The Fifth Child’, ‘The Diary of a Good Neighbor’, and ‘If the Old Could’. ‘Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949’, her brilliant autobiographical work, won much critical praise and numerous accolades.