Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949 -1962 - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Doris Lessing was one of the most important writers of the second half of the 20th-century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist. In 2001, Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". She died in 2013.

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She has been called 'a national treasure'; she has packed audiences choking with laughter wherever she has travelled with her one-woman shows. Now Dorothy Paul takes to the page with the story of her childhood in Dennistoun, her working life from the days with Kraft Cheese to the triumph of 'The Steamie' – 'She's tough and sexy – a tenement goddess with a tongue that could shift rust' – her marriage and her roller-coaster stage career.

Her nostalgia is sharply observed and never sentimental. As a reviewer of her show remarked, 'What she sends up, she never puts down.' The vivid characters familiar from her shows – ingenious father, long-suffering mother, the tribe of aunts and at least two criminal teachers – are joined here by Variety stars and a galaxy of actors, so that the book is not only a history of Dorothy Paul but also a chapter in the history of the Scottish stage, and of the early days of STV.

There's much humour in the book, of course; but there is also reflection on the sources of that humour: a life in the footlights but also in the shadows. Dorothy Paul presents a selection of the many parts she has played, on stage and off; her story is touching, revealing and, ultimately, a celebration.