Lessing’s Witness Literature

This chapter takes as its starting point World War One, its traumatic effect on Lessing’s parents, and the ongoing effect of their traumas on Lessing herself; and goes on to explore how these issues are channeled into literary form in The Wind Blows Away our Words (1987), Mara and Dann (1999), The Story of General Dann and Mara’s Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog (2005) and Alfred and Emily (2008). In exploring the effects of trauma on survivors and their children, it refers to the theories of a psychologist specialising in war trauma, Robert Jay Lifton; to Holocaust scholars such as Michael Levine; and to the philosopher Susan Brison. The chapter demonstrates how Lessing’s early experiences influenced her contribution to what is termed ‘witness literature’, developing techniques in her work that encourage readers to engage with the most challenging issues of her time, and to expose the ways in which language can be manipulated. Lessing’s thinking is contextualised with reference to other writers such as Herta Müller, Nadine Gordimer, Storm Jameson, Attia Hosein and Kamala Markhandaya, whose work is haunted by the effects of war and violence, and who all insist that personal experience cannot be divorced from the Zeitgeist.