Published in 1962, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook merits fresh theoretical, geopolitical, autobiographical, and aesthetic approaches. Prompted by the novel's golden anniversary, the twelve essays collected in this volume provide fresh analyses along with appreciative memoirs for 21st century readers of this well-known masterpiece.

Introduction; Alice Ridout, Roberta Rubenstein, and Sandra Singer PART I: POLITICS AND GEOPOLITICS 1. "Across the Frontiers": Reading Africa in The Golden Notebook ; Julie Cairnie 2. Doris Lessing and the Madness of Nuclear Deterrence; Mark Pedretti 3. "Through That Gap the Future Might Pour": Dreaming the Post-Cold War World in The Golden Notebook ; Cornelius Collins 4. Feminist Commitment to Left-Wing Realism in The Golden Notebook ; Sandra Singer PART II: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, AESTHETIC, AND THEORETICAL RECONSIDERATIONS 5. The Golden Notebook , Disguised Autobiography, and roman à clef ; Roberta Rubenstein 6. Between Modernism and Postmodernism: Positioning The Golden Notebook in the Twentieth-Century Canon; Tonya Krouse 7. "So Why Write Novels?" The Golden Notebook , Mikhail Bakhtin, and the Politics of Authorship; Sophia Helen Barnes 8. Re-reading The Golden Notebook After Chick Lit; Alice Ridout PART III: "TIMING IS ALL": PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 9. The Golden Notebook , Serendipity, and Me; Paul Schlueter 10. I Remember Doris Lessing and her Illimitable Novel; Jonah Raskin 11. Timing is All: The Golden Notebook Then and Now; Florence Howe 12. The Golden Notebook : First Impact and Revisionary Reading; Gillian Beer