The Four-Gated City (Children of Violence Book 5)

"I read the Children of Violence novels and began to understand how a person could write about the problems of the world in a compelling and beautiful way, and it seemed to me that was the most important thing I could ever do." — Barbara Kingsolver 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, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, as a great radical writer. In this, the fifth and final volume, Marth, now middle-aged, leaves Africa for post-war London. As housekeeper to the Coldridge family, she watches the children in her care, the new 'children of violence', grow up in a disintegrating world, a world careering toward nuclear disaster.

Dorris Lessing's classic series of autobiographical novels is the fictional counterpart to Under My Skin. In these five novels, first published in the 1950's and 60s, Doris Lessing transformed her fascinating life into fiction, creating her most complex and compelling character, Martha Quest.

Barbara Kingsolver

I read the Children of Violence novels and began to understand how a person could write about the problems of the world in a compelling and beautiful way, and it seemed to me that was the most important thing I could ever do.

"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, the fifth and final volume, Martha, now middle-aged, leaves Africa for post-war London. As housekeeper to the Coldridge family, she watches the children in her care, the new 'children of violence', grow up in a disintegrating world, a world careering towards nuclear disaster."--Back cover The 1993 edition of this ISBN can be found (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41438943-the-four-gated-city) here Dorris Lessing's classic series of autobiographical novels is the fictional counterpart to Under My Skin. In these five novels, first published in the 1950's and 60s, Doris Lessing transformed her fascinating life into fiction, creating her most complex and compelling character, Martha Quest. Martha leaves Africa for post-war London. As housekeeper to the Coldridge family, she watches the children in her care, the new "children of violence", grow up in a distintegrating world, a world careering towards nuclear disaster After moving to London, Martha Quest finds herself being drawn toward a Bohemian way of life