A Ripple from the Storm

A Ripple in the Storm (1958) is the third novel in British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing five volume, semi-autobiographical, series, Children of Violence. The first volume is Martha Quest (1952), and the others are, A Proper Marriage (1954), Landlocked (1965), and The Four-Gated City (1969). The Children of Violence series, follows the life of protagonist Martha Quest "from girlhood to middle age".^[1]

A Ripple in the Storm describes the growth of a Communist group in a small town in Central Africa, "as a result of the general mood of optimism, enthusiasm and admiration for the Soviet Union current in the years 1942, 1943 and 1944." Martha Quest, now divorced from her husband, joins the communists and marries its leader, who is a German refugee.^[2]

There are obvious parallels with Doris Lessing's own life, because after she divorced her first husband, she joined the Left Book Club in 1943. It was here that she met her future second husband, Gottfried Lessing, a refugee from Germany.^[3]

References

Works by Doris Lessing
Novels	The Grass Is Singing Martha Quest The Golden Notebook A Proper Marriage A Ripple from the Storm Landlocked The Four-Gated City Memoirs of a Survivor Shikasta The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five The Sirian Experiments The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire The Good Terrorist The Fifth Child Ben, in the World The Sweetest Dream The Cleft
Short stories	"Through the Tunnel" "Flight"
Collections	Prisons We Choose to Live Inside The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels
Autobiography	Under My Skin Walking in the Shade
Science fiction	Canopus in Argos The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
Other	Alfred and Emily