Doris May Lessing was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. She is now widely regarded as one of the most important post-war writers in English. Her novels, short stories and essays have focused on a wide range of twentieth-century issues and concerns, from the politics of race - which she confronted in her early novels set in Africa - to the politics of gender, which led to her adoption by the feminist movement, to the role of the family and the individual in society, explored in her space fiction of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Canopus in Argos: Archives is her sequence of five science fiction novels. The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, the second novel, depicts the influence of unknown higher powers on interactions between a series of civilizational "zones" of varying degrees of advancement that encircle the planet Earth. The novel begins with a chronicler of Zone Three, a country of an unspecified region of the earth, explaining that for unknown reasons the Providers have commanded a marriage between the Queen of Zone Three, Al·Ith, and the King of the neighbouring Zone Four, Ben Ata. The chroniclers, poets, and songwriters, although keepers of tradition, are not sure exactly what a marriage is. They know what sex is, and they know that children can result from marriage, but the authorities and the Queen herself are in doubt about the meaning of the command… You can listen online to free English audiobook “The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five” by Doris Lessing on our website.
