'SHE LOOKED ACROSS THE FIELD TO THE DUMFRIES HILLS AND RE-FASHIONED THAT UNUSED COUNTRY TO THE SCALE OF HER IMAGINATION. THERE AROSE, OVER THE HARSH SCRUB AND THE STUNTED TREES, A NOBLE CITY, SET FOURSQUARE AND COLONNADED, ITS CITIZENS GRAVE AND BEAUTIFUL, BLACK AND WHITE TOGETHER.'

The 'Children of Violence' series, a quintet of novels tracing the life of Martha Quest from her childhood in Africa to a post-nuclear Britain of AD 2000, first established Doris Lessing as a great radical writer. In this first volume, Martha, the young rebellious daughter of a white family, finds her coming of age to be a great struggle for freedom and recognition. Intelligent and deeply compassionate, she sees the unpalatable political and social realities of her world with an extraordinary clarity. Martha's vision of a just society takes her beyond the impoverished and rigid farming community to the city - an ill-matched marriage her means of escape...

"Stubborn, resilient, wry towards herself, Martha is Doris Lessing's most satisfying and complex characterisation. She is a child of her times, of violence, who "could no more dissociate herself from the violence done by her than a tadpole can live out of water""

THE TIMES

"With deceptive simplicity, Doris Lessing reveals more about the private depths of the mind and soul than perhaps one ought to know"

DAILY TELEGRAPH

"'Martha Quest' is a deeply felt and powerfully written account of a modern woman's progress."

SUNDAY TIMES