( AP ) - English writer Doris Lessing, who ended her formal schooling at age 13 and went on to write novels that explored relationships between the genders and races, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday.
The Swedish Academy cited her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny."
Lessing, who turns 88 in just over a week, was born to British parents who were living in what is now Iran. The family later moved to what is now Zimbabwe, where she largely grew up. Lessing made her debut with "The Grass Is Singing" in 1950. Her other works include the semiautobiographical "Children Of Violence" series, largely set in Africa, that include the works.
Her breakthrough was the 1962 "Golden Notebook," the academy said. Her other important novels include "The Summer Before Dark" in 1973 and "The Fifth Child" in 1988.
The literature award was the fourth of this year's Nobel Prizes to be announced and one of the most hotly anticipated given the sheer amount of guessing it generated in the weeks leading up to award.
On Wednesday, Gerhard Ertl of Germany won the 2007 Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding such questions as why the ozone layer is thinning.
Tuesday, France's Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg won the physics award for discovering a phenomenon that lets computers and digital music players store reams of data on ever-shrinking hard disks.
Americans Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, and Briton Sir Martin J. Evans, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a powerful technique for manipulating mouse genes.
Prizes for peace and economics will be announced through Oct. 15.
The awards - each worth $1.5 million - will be handed out by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10.