The Grass is Singing

Set in Rhodesia, this is the story of Dick, a failed white farmer and his wife, Mary, dependent and disappointed. Both are trapped by poverty, and in the heat of the brick and tin house, hemmed in by the bush, Mary finds herself seeking solace in the arms of the houseboy.

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The Grass Is Singing is Doris Lessing’s classic first novel.

It is the story of the murder of a poor white woman by her black houseboy. It is a portrait of the woman’s marriage to a luckless farmer, a union doomed to failure before they had even met. And it is an evocation of the country in which they lived — Rhodesia.

In The Grass Is Singing, the harsh, majestic beauty and the remorseless social values of white Southern Africa come violently, brilliantly to life.

’Original and striking… full of those terrifying touches of truth, seldom mentioned but instantly recognized’ — NEW STATESMAN

’A first novel of astonishing accomplishment’ — DAILYTELEGRAPH