The Grass is Singing

DORIS LESSING was born in Persia in 1919 and spent her childhood on a large farm in Zimbabwe. The Grass is Singing was her first novel and was an immediate success on its publication in 1949. The Children of Violence sequence was written out of her experience of life and socialist organisation in the colony. Some of her later novels, including The Golden Notebook, haw a London background. Her short stories are collected under the titles Notebook and This Was the Old Chief's Country. She has also written plays for stage and television.

Mary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front veranda of their homestead yesterday morning. Tne houseboy, who has been arrested, has confessed to the crime. No motive has been discovered. It is thought he was in search of valuables.

The newspaper did not say much. People all over the country must have glanced at the paragraph with its sensational heading and felt a little spurt of anger mingled with what was almost satisfaction, as if some belief had been confirmed, as if something had happened which could only have been expected. When natives steal, murder, or rape, that is the feeling white people have.'