Critical Praise

"[Lessing's] acute political and artistic awareness makes her vision of our time rich and almost always freshly perceptive."

——The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"Lessing's sage, level gaze is everywhere bought to bear … [The Sweetest Dream] is solidly wrought, deeply felt."

——Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Anyone who regards The Golden Notebook as one of the key books of the mid-20th century will find this disconcerting novel worth attention."

——The Sunday Telegraph (London)

"Irresistibly alluring … [The Sweetest Dream is] one of Lessing's most generous works."

——Book Magazine

"[The Sweetest Dream] is a beautifully made book."

——Financial Times [London]

"A great story with a Dickensian cast of memorable characters"

——Evening Standard

"In its critique of mass-produced thinking and the long-term personal cost of war, The Sweetest Dream approaches a universal truth: both damage people's capacity to give and receive love."

——The Observer (London)

"This book brings with it a rare literary pleasure - the kind you might have in suddenly coming upon a long lost novel by George Elliot or Balzac …The haunting brilliance of her characters whom one feels one knows better than one's friends, the passion of her ideas and vision remain unblemished."

——The Independent (London)

"Lessing's most engrossing novel in many years."

——London Times Literary Supplement