(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-11 19:37

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - British writer Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy said Thursday, citing her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."

Writer Doris Lessing, 86, sits in her home in a quiet block of north London April 17, 2006. Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature for "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." [Agencies]

Lessing, 87, born to British parents who were living in what is now Iran, made her debut with "The Grass Is Singing" in 1950. Her other works include the semi-autobiographical "Children Of Violence" series, largely set in Africa.

Her breakthrough was the 1962 "Golden Notebook," the academy said.

"The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that inform the 20th century view of the male-female relationship," the academy said in its citation announcing the prize.

Lessing's other important novels include "The Summer Before Dark" in 1973 and "The Fifth Child" in 1988.

"The vision of global catastrophe forcing mankind to return to a more primitive life has had special appeal for Doris Lessing. It reappears in some of her books of recent years," the academy said.

Those include "Mara and Dann" from 1999 and its sequel, "The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog," published in 2005.

"From collapse and chaos emerge the elementary qualities that allow Lessing to retain hope in humanity," the academy said.

Lessing is the second British writer to win the prize in three years. In 2005, Harold Pinter received the award. Last year, the academy gave the prize to Turkey's Orhan Pamuk.

The literature award was the fourth of this year's Nobel Prizes to be announced and one of the most hotly anticipated given the sheer amount of guessing it generated in the weeks leading up to award.

On Wednesday, Gerhard Ertl of Germany won the 2007 Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding such questions as why the ozone layer is thinning.

Tuesday, France's Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg won the physics award for discovering a phenomenon that lets computers and digital music players store reams of data on ever-shrinking hard disks.

Americans Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, and Briton Sir Martin J. Evans, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a powerful technique for manipulating mouse genes.

Prizes for peace and economics will be announced through October 15.

The awards - each worth 10 million Swedish kronor (US$1.5 million; euro 1.1 million) - will be handed out by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.