Celebrated author Doris Lessing has bequeathed her entire book collection to the city library in Harare, it’s been reported.
The winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, who died in November 2013, apparently left instructions that her library of over 3,000 books should be sent to the Zimbabwe capital.
Lessing’s executors say that Book Aid International, a charity that Lessing supported, has been asked to help transport the donation. Throughout her life, Lessing fostered several programmes in Zimbabwe to aid literacy through libraries and studying.
Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni said the gift was a “magnificent gesture” from someone who had taken “her love for this country beyond her death”. He says: “We have every reason to feel special to have earned this much in her wishes – we are delighted and grateful as any city would be.”
Lessing lived in Zimbabwe from 1924-1949, when it was known as Southern Rhodesia. She returned there in 1956, but was declared a “prohibited migrant” by the government for her anti-settler sentiments and left-wing political views.
