"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