Martha Quest – Doris Lessing

Intelligent sensitive and fiercely passionate Martha Quest is a young woman living on a farm in Africa feeling her way through the torments of adolescence and early womanhood. She is a romantic idealistic in revolt against the puritan snobbery of her parents trying to live to the full with every nerve emotion and instinct laid bare to experience. For her this is a time of solitary reading daydreams dancing — and the first disturbing encounters with sex. The first of Doris Lessings timeless Children of Violence novels Martha Quest is an endearing masterpiece.