A Bloody Disaster

says Doris Lessing, of winning the Nobel Prize.

"It has stopped, I don't have any energy any more. This is why I keep telling anyone younger than me – don't imagine you'll have it for ever. Use it while you've got it because it'll go, it's sliding away like water down a plughole."

Lessing's age and the media demands attached to winning the prize have conspired to make Alfred and Emily her last book, she says. A sad note, but a long and illustrious career.