The Four-Gated City is the fifth and final novel in the Children of Violence series.


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Praise for Doris Lessing’s Novella

“Lessing sets the scene instantly, viscerally, and explores the folds and recesses of character with astonishing economy.”

Boston Globe

“[Lessing] has a seismographer’s feel for the fissures beneath the surface of family and for the tension between personal yearning and society’s conventions.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Intensely readable…. [Lessing] offers startling perspectives on domesticity and desire.”

O, The Oprah Magazine

“Powerful… beautifully realized.”

Miami Herald

“A keen sociological eye for class and ideology; an understanding of the contradictory impulses of the human heart; an ability to conjure a place, a mood, and a time through seemingly matter-of-fact descriptions.”

—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“Stunning… showing Lessing’s trademark incisiveness.”

Vogue

“Lessing is an incisive chronicler of our times and a wickedly honest storyteller.”

New Orleans Times-Picayune

“At once intimately detailed yet infinitely expansive in the suggestions of a lost world only recoverable by a profoundly observant writer… showing [Lessing] at the top of her very impressive form.”

Publishers Weekly

“Brilliantly written…. Lessing is at the top of her game.”

Library Journal (starred)

Copyright

Cover art used courtesy of Exclusive Media and © Exclusive Media.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Originally published as “The Grandmothers” in the collection The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels in hardcover in the United States in 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers.

P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

ADORE. Copyright © 2013 by Doris Lessing. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-0-06-231896-1

EPub Edition September 2013 ISBN 9780062318978

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