British novelist Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature yesterday for a body of work that looked unflinchingly at society?s ills and inspired a generation of feminist writers. The Swedish Academy, which awards the coveted 10 million Swedish crown ($1.54 million) prize, called 87-year-old Lessing an ?epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny?.

The oldest person to win a Nobel for literature, Lessing was only the 34th female laureate since the prizes began in 1901 and the 11th woman to take the literature award.

Lessing, who was shopping when the news of her Nobel broke and learned of it from reporters, said the prize had dealt her the literary equivalent of the best possible hand in poker. ?I?ve won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I?m delighted to win them all, the whole lot,? she told reporters outside her London home. ?It?s a royal flush.?

Jane Friedman, chief executive of Lessing publisher HarperCollins, called the Nobel a complete surprise. ?This is such wonderful news. This is absolutely extraordinary,? she told Reuters at the Frankfurt Book Fair. ?She has been an icon for women for a lifetime.?

Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Lessing?s work had been of great importance to other writers and to the broader field of literature.

?She has been a subject for discussion (by the academy) for quite some time, and now the moment was right. Perhaps we could say that she is one of the most carefully considered decisions in the history of the Nobel Prize,? he told Reuters after announcing Lessing had won.

<B>Changing the face of literature</B>

?She has opened up a new area of experience that earlier had not been very accepted in literature. That has to do with, for instance, female sexuality.?

Nicholas Pearson, Lessing?s editor at HarperCollins division the Fourth Estate, called the news ?thrilling?. ?Those early books changed the face of literature ? the description of the inner lives of women,? he told Reuters.

Lessing, born to British parents in what was then Persia, now Iran, on October 22, 1919, was raised in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. She went to a convent boarding school at the age of seven and later moved to a girls? school in Salisbury, Rhodesia.

Lessing ended her formal schooling at 14 and worked variously as a nanny, telephonist, office worker and journalist. Her debut as a novelist came in 1950 with The Grass is Singing, a book that examined the relationship between a white farmer?s wife and her black servant. Her 1962 work The Golden Notebook was widely considered her breakthrough.

<B>Burgeoning feminist</B>

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

Outspoken Lessing?s criticism of the governments in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia led her to be banned from both countries in the 1950s.

This was the fourth of this year?s crop of Nobel prizes, handed out annually for achievements in science, literature, economics and peace.

FACT BOX

<B>Who is Doris Lessing? </B>

Born in what was Persia, now Iran, on October 22, 1919. Lessing was raised in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. At the age of seven she was sent to a convent boarding school but later moved to a girls? school in Salisbury, Rhodesia. She went to Britain at the age of 30 with the manuscript of her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, about the relationship of a white farmer?s wife and her black servant. It was an immediate best-seller in Britain, Europe and America. Her stories and novellas set in Africa, published during the 1950s and early 1960s, decry the dispossession of black Africans by white colonials and expose the sterility of the white culture in southern Africa. In 1956, in response to Lessing?s outspokenness, she was declared a prohibited alien in both Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Lessing is now widely regarded as one of the most important post-war writers in English. In 1987?s The Wind Blows Away Our Words, Lessing attacked what she saw as the West?s indifference to the war in Afghanistan. In it, she described a trip she made in 1986 to Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. Most recently she has written, The Grandmothers (2003), a collection of four short novels centred on an unconventional extended family and Time Bites (2004), a selection of essays based on her life experiences. Her latest novel is The Cleft. (2007).