LONDON, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- British Nobel Prize-winning writer Doris Lessing died Sunday morning in London at the age of 94, said her publisher.
According to a statement by Harper Collins, she "passed away peacefully" at home in the early hours on Sunday.
"Doris Lessing was one of the great writers of our age," Charlie Redmayne, the UK chief executive of Harper Collins, was quoted by the Guardian as saying. "She was a compelling storyteller with a fierce intellect and a warm heart who was not afraid to fight for what she believed in."
With an Iranian origin, Lessing spent many early years in Africa, before eventually moving to the UK in 1937. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 as the oldest winner in this category. She is also the eleventh woman to receive this prize.
In 2008, she was ranked by The Times as fifth of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Lessing's best known work was The Golden Notebook, which was written in 1962 and "informed the 20th century view of the male-female relationship". It was considered by many as a feminist classic.
Some of her other novels focused on her African experiences and social and political struggle, while others were thrillers and science fiction.
The Swedish Academy described her as an "epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."
The news of her death shocked many who soon voiced their condolences on Twitter.
