Doris May Lessing was a British novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia, where she remained until moving in 1949 to London, England. Her novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–1969), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983).

The Grass Is Singing, published in 1950, is the first novel by the British author Doris Lessing. It takes place in Southern Rhodesia, in southern Africa, during the 1940s and deals with the racial politics between whites and blacks in that country. It follows an emotionally immature woman's hasty marriage to an unsuccessful farmer, and her ensuing mental deterioration, her murder, and the colonial British society's reactions to it. The novel created a sensation when it was first published and became an instant success in Europe and the United States. A Swedish-made adaptation, Gräset Sjunger, was filmed in English in 1981.