"No ordinary work of fiction...The technique, in a word, is brilliant."
--SATURDAY REVIEW
"The most absorbing and exciting piece of new fiction I have read in a decade; it moves with the beat of our time, and it is true."
--IRVING HOWE, NEW REPUBLIC
Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.
Introduction 1993
Introduction 1971
FREE WOMEN: 1
Anna meets her friend Molly in the summer of1957 after a separation
THE NOTEBOOKS
FREE WOMEN: 2
Two visits, some telephone calls and a tragedy
THE NOTEBOOKS
FREE WOMEN: 3
Tommy adjusts himself to being blind while the older people try to help him
THE NOTEBOOKS
FREE WOMEN: 4
Anna and Molly influence Tommy, for the better.
Marion leaves Richard. Anna does not feel herself
THE NOTEBOOKS
THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK
FREE WOMEN: 5
Molly gets married and Anna has an affair
About Doris Lessing