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Mara and Dann

3.76 of 5 stars 3.76 · rating details · 617 ratings · 73 reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
An emotionally involving science-fantasy novel with a focus on history and sociological relevance, Mara and Dann is Doris Lessing's return to magic realism after a number of autobiographies and books of essays. As with most of her work, this tale is set in Africa (now known as Ifrik) but several thousand years in the future. Mara and Dann is a...more

Paperback, 407 pages

Published December 22nd 1999 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 1998)

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Feb 27, 2013 Aerin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, apocalyptic, well-that-was-awesome, and-man-grew-proud, female-sf-authors-of-the-80s-90s

I have always liked novels set in the far-distant future, especially those that make liberal use of what TV Tropes calls "And Man Grew Proud", where myths and religions about our current society have developed over the centuries. Other good examples of this type of book: A Canticle for Leibowitz (literary), Eternity Road (pulpy), The City of Ember (children's) [edit: see also my bookshelf for this trope]. Mara and Dann is another book in that vein; I loved it not only for that reason, but becaus...more I have always liked novels set in the far-distant future, especially those that make liberal use of what TV Tropes calls "And Man Grew Proud", where myths and religions about our current society have developed over the centuries. Other good examples of this type of book: A Canticle for Leibowitz (literary), Eternity Road (pulpy), The City of Ember (children's) [edit: see also my bookshelf for this trope]. Mara and Dann is another book in that vein; I loved it not only for that reason, but because it is also a fascinating adventure story.

Born into a relatively affluent settlement in southern Ifrik (the continent we know as Africa), siblings Mara and Dann spent their first few years in comfort. However, when Mara is six and Dann only a toddler, they are kidnapped by a group of strangers and taken to be raised far away, in a poor drought-stricken town. So begins the cross-continental journey that will consume their lives.

Ifrik is in a period of transition from comfortable forests and savannahs to vast deserts, and as such, its people are in turmoil, trying ever to escape drought and starvation. Mara and Dann become part of the northerly migration, facing death or slavery at every turn, and as they go they begin to learn the long history of the world and their place in it.

As in many of these kinds of books, they encounter the ruins of cities and societies that are instantly recognizable to modern readers, and they marvel at old technologies that somehow still function although their secrets have long been forgotten. But unlike some distant-future dystopias, this isn't a preachy or cautionary tale. The destruction of modern-day society isn't presented as the result of our folly, but as part of the natural cycle of history. And although the story of how modern civilization declined and fell is interesting, the main plot of this book is character-driven: Mara and Dann's bond, their yearning for a permanent home, their adventures and harrowing escapes.

I highly recommend this one. Although I must admit, the one scene that is likely to stick in my mind forever is the one where Mara and Dann, staying the night in an abandoned building, hear scuffling above them. When they go to investigate, they find one room completely infested with hundreds of giant spiders - THE SIZE OF DOGS - with nothing to eat except each other, fighting and tearing each other apart limb from limb.

SPIDERS. The size of DOGS. HELLO, NIGHTMARES.

Still, great book.(less)

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Jul 31, 2011 Mikael Kuoppala rated it 3 of 5 stars

Doris Lessing takes us to a far-future, climate change devastated Africa in this lyrical sci-fi adventure about two siblings who struggle to survive as they travel across the continent to escape drought. On their travels they encounter different groups of people with various ways of living, through whom they get to observe the variety that is our race.

There are many wonderful post-apocalyptic tales out there and most of them concentrate mostly on the demise of everything we know. "Mara and Dann...more Doris Lessing takes us to a far-future, climate change devastated Africa in this lyrical sci-fi adventure about two siblings who struggle to survive as they travel across the continent to escape drought. On their travels they encounter different groups of people with various ways of living, through whom they get to observe the variety that is our race.

There are many wonderful post-apocalyptic tales out there and most of them concentrate mostly on the demise of everything we know. "Mara and Dann – An Adventure" goes further than that: humanity has been virtually destroyed, but after an undefined amount of time new civilizations are finally awaking from the ruins of the self-inflicted annihilation of our current one. The planet has been stripped of natural resources, which makes the emergence of societies different from how it went our time around.

Lessing has been dubbed a pessimist, and there is inherent pessimism also in this book. Famine, violence, hate and despair are present everywhere in the form of endless wars and cruelty in everyday interaction between people. But I think that "Mara and Dann" is first and foremost a story about hope. The whole concept here is based on the inherently hopeful assumption that if and when we cause the self-destruction of our modern society, there might still be something to salvage. The planet, maybe animals, maybe even some humans. Some say that perhaps the only way to achieve a stable world is for sentient life to first wastefully strip away all resources that threaten the survival of the planet. A culture with no ore to process has no means for achieving the technological advancement required for wiping out any species, let alone collapse the whole planetary ecosystem.

I really like the concept here, but somehow this piece doesn't fulfill its inherent potential.The microsocieties described are fascinating and it's clear that "Mara and Dann" is fundamentally a sociological examination if nothing else. Still, I was hoping for more on that front. All the various ways of life Lessing has imagined would have deserved a more thorough examination. And as with many of her books, the overall feel is slightly erratic and aimless, making me think the text should have been honed a bit more. Also, even as the novel is daring on the character level, I felt as if Mara as the point of view character of the book is left flat and too undefined; she’s heroic, and her hunger for knowledge is uplifting, but there is no depth beneath the heroism. If only she would come across as more real, the whole piece would feel more relevant. This especially as the supporting characters are left as minor players, most notably Dann, who is present so often you can’t help but notice his flatness. Maybe their vagueness is calculated, communicating the way the imagined future would shape its children, but from a dramatic standpoint that choice would not be good in any case.

“Mara and Dann” is imperfect, offering a lot but in a diluted form among all the sidesteps Lessing carries the reader through. Overall I felt that this book concentrated a bit too much on being- as the title announces- an adventure. Adventures can be wonderful literature, but this world would have been a better setting for a more directly cerebral tale.(less)

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Feb 14, 2012 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those with strong stomachs

Recommended to Susan by: no one

Doris Lessing subtitled her book "an adventure story" but I would have to say that the first half is more aptly described as a horror story about starvation, thirst, natural perils of many varieties, and human aggression. Don't pick up this book if you are prone to nightmares when exposed to human sized biting, flesh-ripping insects. Despite (or because of) its horrors, I found the book extremely engrossing. Lessing locates us thousands of years in the future, on the drought-ravaged continent of...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Jessie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Lessings tale is set far into the future, when severe climate change has caused a drought and increased the incidence of war that threatens Mara and her brother Dann's lives. The story tracks the couple on their great trek "North", where everything is supposed to be milk and honey. It is engaging and never tires. There are some disturbing things about the book. One is the author's eugenecist remarks that imply that some races are naturally inferior to others, although she is clear to make these...more

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Oct 12, 2009 Ramona rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'll be frank: this is my favorite book ever. It truly is an adventure, and is gripping and quick-moving as such.
It's also fairly post-apocalytic, taking place it what could possibly be a post-global warming earth. Fascinating descriptions of underwater cities, parched lands, and the search for food and water in a hostile environment.
But the best thing about Mara and Dann is the charaters--Mara and Dann are children, yet Lessing makes them complex and many-sided characters. She also explores typ...more

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Mar 31, 2010 Chanpheng rated it 4 of 5 stars

A engrossing book set 10,000 years in the future, where humans are dying out because of drought and continued wars. While similar in content with the post-apocalyptic books, Lessing's writing goes deeper into the social structure and personal relationships of the two main characters and who they meet on their journey. A few insights - why people fight each other when their common enemy is the drought and they should be banding together in cooperation. Also, the relationship between comfort and h...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Zeruhur rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Mara and Dann which is definitely a science fiction novel, it is mostly a good novel of formation. The setting is not a mere side dish of the plot. We are in a new ice age, a large part of the northern hemisphere is covered by permafrost and the world population has moved south, in Africa and Latin America. As a result of this biblical migration, the people you are confused and fought and memory of our technological age has been lost. Centuries after the beginning of this glaciation, Ifrik (the...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Mel rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was haunting me for awhile. I came across a copy of the prop of Searider Falcon from BSG, which had the physical book of General Dann as its base. Then, a couple weeks later, my friend from library school gushed and gushed about how wonderful and post apocalyptic they were and how they had so much about the search for lost knowledge. So I realised I really had to read Mara and Dann and its sequel. The book was very evocative in its descriptions of the terrain, culture and lives of thos...more This book was haunting me for awhile. I came across a copy of the prop of Searider Falcon from BSG, which had the physical book of General Dann as its base. Then, a couple weeks later, my friend from library school gushed and gushed about how wonderful and post apocalyptic they were and how they had so much about the search for lost knowledge. So I realised I really had to read Mara and Dann and its sequel. The book was very evocative in its descriptions of the terrain, culture and lives of those in Ifrik. It all felt very well defined and visual. I think this was its strongest point. The description of the world and the decayed and dying civilisations were really lovely. You felt the terror and awful loss. It was also nice to read a post-apocalyptic book that was set so far in the future, so many thousands of years after "the end of the world" and see what new and subsequent cultures had formed after our own. And to be honest, most of these cultures were just as bad and terrifying as what we have now. I have to say I kept hoping for more glimpses of what happened, and how the other cultures had come to be, particularly the one that made all the indestructible things. But there was enough to keep me interested. Mara was an interesting character. She was intelligent and wanted to know how the world around her worked. Her greatest flaw though was that she was one of the most passive characters ever. (On a line with Evelyn Waugh's male protagonists). She had no desires and no goals, beyond simply learning about the past. The only time I can think of in the entire book when she did something active, was when she took her cow to get mated when she was still a young girl. Her entire adult life, once her brother returned was following him, or being placed in one situation after another. Apart from hunger she never faced any danger as wherever she went, be it brothel, slave traders, army everyone loved her and tried to protect her. She seemed to happily, or unhappily, float from situation to situation without any initiative or drive. She never tried to escape, or act to change anything about her life. It was frankly a little odd. Also, perhaps partly because of this, she seemed not to develop as a character, despite the trauma she'd been through. This trauma had an obvious and devastating affect on her brother Dann, who seemed to bear the brunt of most of it, and as such he grew and changed and became much more complex. Perhaps Mara was supposed to represent the passive female ideal, because at times she really felt more like a stereotype than a person. Dann on the other hand was much more driven, and never gave up his ideal to go north. (Well except for that whole destruction with the opium addiction and then later with the gambling). But he was very active and caring, despite his callous nature towards the other slaves and refugees. It was interesting to see how he was so much more affected by everything, from the events of their original fleeing from their home, to his life as a slave. I felt that the only thing that was brushed aside was his life in the military as a general, and how quickly he was able to give that up to continue his search North. I have to say the part of the book that stood out the clearest for me and seemed the most honest was when Mara realised that the older civilisations had birth control and she analysed what an impact this would have on women and women's liberation. The fact that they wouldn't always have to be afraid of men, afraid of getting pregnant but could be treated as equals and get on with their lives. And I would like to say that starting a farm is the worst idea for the ending of sci-fi, and I'm getting a bit tired of it. Still I did enjoy the book a great deal and as soon as I finished it I picked up the sequel. I'm curious to read more Doris Lessing. She's definitely not god in my opinion. But I'm curious enough to give her another try after these. (less)

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Dec 14, 2009 Zach rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, science-fiction

I cannot stand the way this book is written. I don't know if this is

1) Lessing's regular style
2) Because this book centers on children
3) Because it's supposed to feel like a folktale

or some combination of the above, but whatever the reason, it grates on me like you wouldn't believe. Like so, pages 31-32:

Suck, suck, suck. The sound was driving Mara quite wild with dislike of it, an irritation that made her want to hit her little brother, and she was ashamed of herself and began to cry. She had ha...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Kari rated it 5 of 5 stars

"What I learned from this book"? That I really don't want to die of starvation! This book is actually amazing; it takes place thousands of years in the future after the world's climate has been drastically affected by a new ice age, and people can only dream of civilization as complex as we know it today - they have lost the knowledge of most technology (though they are perfectly aware that it once existed) and the protagonists are desperate for any knowledge they can glean from still extant rem...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Coquille Fleur rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: post-apocalypse, re-read, favorites

I just read this a month or so ago, and it has just become my favorite book. It's a post, post, post apocalypse novel about a brother and sister on a primitive journey of survival and a quest for the truth about the futuristic past they encounter in the ruins along the way. Their past is our distant future, which ends abruptly in an ice age that covers the Northern Hemisphere in ice in less than a century. Lessing creates powerful images of drought and a desperate stream of refugees outrunning t...more I just read this a month or so ago, and it has just become my favorite book. It's a post, post, post apocalypse novel about a brother and sister on a primitive journey of survival and a quest for the truth about the futuristic past they encounter in the ruins along the way. Their past is our distant future, which ends abruptly in an ice age that covers the Northern Hemisphere in ice in less than a century. Lessing creates powerful images of drought and a desperate stream of refugees outrunning the encroaching desertification of Southern Ifrik (our Africa). Here is a quote from pg. 260 that illustrates how powerful this novel is:

"And there was a time when women had one child after another and sometimes died young because of it, or were old at forty, but then they discovered some medicine or herb that stopped them having children..."
"What" said Mara. "What are you saying?"
She was staring, she was breathless.
"What's wrong, Mara?"
"I can't...I don't think I can take that in...do you mean to say...you're saying that those ancient women, if they took some drug, then they didn't have children?"
"Yes, It's in the Sand Records."
"That meant, those women then didn't have to be afraid of men?"
Shabis said, drily, "I haven't noticed your being afraid."
"You don't understand. Daima used to tell me and tell me until I sometimes got angry with her. Remember when you meet a man,he could make you pregnant. Think if you're in your fertile period and if you are be on your guard..."
"I cannot even begin to imagine what it could be like, being at ease when you meet a man. And then, when it suits you, at the time when you want it, you have a baby. They must have been quite different from us, those women in ancient times. So different..." She was silent, thinking, "they were free. We could never be free, in that way." Now she was remembering Kulik, how she had dodged and evaded and run away, and even had nightmares. Dreams of helplessness. That was the point. Being helpless."

Lessing's voice is heard loud and clear in this otherworld adventure story. Drug addiction, slavery, giant poisonous and carnivorous beasts await in the dry sands and in every turn of the river North. This is such an amazing story that I have re-read it a few times.
(less)

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Sep 28, 2008 Rakesh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mara and Dann according to the author is the reworking of an old fairy tale about an orphaned brother and sister who had all kinds of adventures, suffered a hundred vicissitudes and ended up living happily ever after. The story is set in the future when the next ice age has forced all life to retreat to a central land mass(based on africa) which is called ifrik in the book. Two mahonti kids, a sister and a younger brother finds themselves seperated from their parents and with the rock people one...more Mara and Dann according to the author is the reworking of an old fairy tale about an orphaned brother and sister who had all kinds of adventures, suffered a hundred vicissitudes and ended up living happily ever after. The story is set in the future when the next ice age has forced all life to retreat to a central land mass(based on africa) which is called ifrik in the book. Two mahonti kids, a sister and a younger brother finds themselves seperated from their parents and with the rock people one night. And the person who brought them there instructs them to change their names and be called as Mara and Dan from then onwards.An old woman named Daima takes in Mara and Dann and put all her effort in bringing them up and teaching them the ways to survive in the rural village of rock people where resources are so scarce and people are very rough. As Daima explains it and as we see when the story proceeds, the harder the things are the more people fight. As time passes things get worse, the whole of their village dies or moves away due to scarcity of food and water and we see the brother and sister joining the migration for survival to the north. In the course of the journey they gets seperated more than once, gets entangled in different kinds of human settlements, gets caught between warring armies and dodges various kinds of dangers.

The book is worth reading for the sheer imagination that went into creating a world where all the advancements of human society as we know now is a distant memory and for the epic nature of the adventures that Mara and Dann face on their journey. And then there are more reasons to read this book. As the author says in the preface, our past experiences help up picture the future. The unimaginably harsh living conditions in ifrik, the mass migration of people for survival and warring groups that are indispersed in the migration path are not very far from the reality in some parts of today's Africa. The growing desert making water and food scarce, political instability and warring militant groups fighting for power has forced a large population of people to migrate or live the life of refugees. The book can be instrumental in educating the readers about the plight of these real people.(less)

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Jun 27, 2008 Guillermo Jiménez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pocas ocasiones tenemos para reflexionar lo que vemos. Contadas reparamos en cómo digerimos lo que consumimos. Sería injusto criticar la sobreinformación de los tiempos actuales (aunque es ineludible dejar de hablar de ella), sin embargo, no nos es ajeno que debemos detenernos minutos al día a pensar en el rumbo que llevamos de manera indivudual y de manera colectiva si queremos no persernos en el camino.

Hay quienes critican fuertemente la incursión de Doris Lessing en la SF (science-fiction)[Al...more Pocas ocasiones tenemos para reflexionar lo que vemos. Contadas reparamos en cómo digerimos lo que consumimos. Sería injusto criticar la sobreinformación de los tiempos actuales (aunque es ineludible dejar de hablar de ella), sin embargo, no nos es ajeno que debemos detenernos minutos al día a pensar en el rumbo que llevamos de manera indivudual y de manera colectiva si queremos no persernos en el camino.

Hay quienes critican fuertemente la incursión de Doris Lessing en la SF (science-fiction)[Alejandro Martínez, por ejemplo], aunque sigo siendo firme en mi postura, los géneros (ya sean literarios o de cualquier otra disciplina) solo sirven en la medida que nos permiten realizar lecturas desde una perspectiva cerrada. Lo ideal, creo yo, es que tanto autor como lector manejen el mismo lenguaje para poder entonces comprender el universo creado en la obra literaria. Si el autor decide que ese lenguaje es el de un género con reglas, no creo que podamos exigirle que las respete, a menos, claro está, que seamos unos reduccionistas al purismo del género. Si Auster decide tomar elementos del policiaco, bien, que lo haga, pero no le pedimos que escriba al estilo de Chandler o Hammet. Si Lessing busca algo a través de la SF, por favor, no esperemos que sea Philip K. Dick o Theodore Sturgeon, de hecho, entre los mismos autores de SF existen divergencias en cuanto a las 'reglas' que deben seguirse.

Mara y Dann califica con el adjetivo de una novela de aventuras ubicada después de la próxima glaciación, 12'000 años después de una fecha cercana a la nuestra. Nos otorga la oportunidad de mostrarnos la ridículez con que perseguimos la perennidad en la actualidad, critica y ridiculiza los obstáculos que nos proponemos a diario y la mirada bélica de nuestro género.

Es una novela fundamental para salirnos de nosotros y asomarnos al exterior de cómo nos vemos, para repasar drásticamente que nuestras costumbres no tienen otro camino que llevarnos a la aniquilación, y que a pesar de esto, no importa, porque los ciclos de la naturaleza se encargaran de borrar de un plumazo todos nuestro 'logros' y 'avances': llegará un momento en que nadie sabrá como se hace el concreto o el acero.

Bien, Doris Lessing, bien.(less)

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Feb 13, 2008 Cindy Bravo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Cindy by: Anne McBeath

This book was very thought provoking and isn't one I would have read except that it was one of our Beautiful Reader's book group picks. It begins ten-thousand years from now, where the northern part of Africa, (now called Ifrik), is covered by glaciers. The ice is retreating and the earth is once again warming. The plotline follows the growth of a brother and sister through childhood and on into adulthood as they make their journey north through an increasingly dangerous and altered terrain. Man...more This book was very thought provoking and isn't one I would have read except that it was one of our Beautiful Reader's book group picks. It begins ten-thousand years from now, where the northern part of Africa, (now called Ifrik), is covered by glaciers. The ice is retreating and the earth is once again warming. The plotline follows the growth of a brother and sister through childhood and on into adulthood as they make their journey north through an increasingly dangerous and altered terrain. Many vestiges of past civilizations are present and Mara, especially, has been given the knowledge to fully understand what has gone on before.

The book's premise is good. Some things will last forever, but that doesn't necessarily make them better. The way in which insects and animals evolve is also quite sinister as the pair travel north through various excapades, escapes and adventures. However, many things are incompletely explored and it is no wonder when we really stop to consider how long one-thousand years is, let alone ten-thousand. The story meanders, but the book does end in a relative state of peace and with the formation of a new family unit. When humans don't have family, they naturally converge to make one.

This book is somewhat depessing to read and the characters are frequently untrue to themselves. It is especially noteworthy that in such primitive conditions it is a disadvantage to be a woman with a brain, unless you are under the protection of a man who is trustworthy. Life still boils down to sex and there is a lot of it going on especially when the drive to procreate is being thwarted by increased sterility in the general population.

In conclusion, though I found this book initially fascinating, its loose plot line and increasing lack of hope began to wear on me and I was glad to be finished with it. It was thought provoking in the sense that many feel we are in the midst of our own environmental crisis in the form of global warming. How will our period of humantiy be remembered and is there really anything we can do to alter such planetary forces? For those who do read this book there is also a sequel called "General Dann and Mara's Daughter." Mara dies in childbirth.(less)

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Jan 05, 2011 Laura Rittenhouse rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book a couple of years ago and was just reminded of it. It's a sort of apocalyptic story set well in our future where climatic changes, and possibly more than that, have caused a major collapse of civilisation as we know it. An interesting tale of survival, loyalty, what if and would I? I suppose it's not going to surprise anyone if I admit that I didn't find this book a happy tale or terribly fun to read. But it is very well written and the story definitely sucked me in.

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Dec 11, 2012 Mike Steinborn added it

An excellent book that I found hard to put down because I was eager to know what happens next! An interesting perspective of life in a post-apocalyptic world (more specifically, Africa) that is difficult for me as a member of the most technologically advanced civilization in history to comprehend: the constant need to be on guard for one's very survival, and looking at the remains of a civilization far greater than your own and wondering at the knowledge they had and the things they were able to...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Rebecca Lee rated it 5 of 5 stars

A touching and moving story about the two siblings, Dann and Mara whose parents had left them during the war because they had people after them who wanted to kill them. At that time, Mara was 7 and Dann was 4. They were told to forget their real names as many people would be after them if they knew who they were. Through the many hardships that they would experience during this time, they learned to be strong and had to travel from many places, running away from people who wanted to kill them. T...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I mean, pretty damn good. My ish is that I am over strong female characters that lack even a tiny hint of a sense of humor. It's okay to give strong female characters a sense of humor! They don't even have to be funny and you don't need to make me laugh, but even when you're starving to death in post-future-ice age dystopian Ifrik, you're still going to find humor in something.

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Dec 01, 2011 Bob Corrigan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Actually, I started this book but haven't gotten very far. The first paragraph! Which is true - but the first paragraph is 55 pages long. Probably why I stopped reading ... I think Ms. Lessing is losing her marbles, writing like that! I mean, I look forward to paragraph breaks, chapter breaks, etc. to give me a break. A pause. To change the scene. I never was much of a fan of this James Joyce style of weird formatting.

Perhaps some day ...

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Nov 01, 2007 Vera rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

My book club wanted to read something by Doris Lessing in light of her recent Nobel Prize. I was willing, but not really thrilled, to reread the Golden Notebook, in which a lot of depressing things happen a la Oprah books. In general, having taken a lot of feminist literature courses in college and grad school, I admired Lessing but I didn't like her.

One of my clubmates very smartly suggested Mara and Dann, the post apocalyptic story of an orphaned brother and sister and their struggles to trave...more

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Mar 07, 2009 Ereaves rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a most prescient novel.An epic adventure story, but also a warning of the dire challenges we face due to global climate change. Lessing captures humanity in the face of limited resources. It is a commentary on love, endurance, human will to survive, and the limits of humanity's ability to whether the coming storm.

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Aug 07, 2011 Gabriela rated it 5 of 5 stars

Every page was mix a of excitment and sorrow. Excitment to know what was coming next and sorrow to be closer to the end of the story. It was my first book by Doris Lessing, an improvable one perhaps, an epic, taking place in the far future, after apocaliptical natural and social events... loved it!

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May 19, 2012 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars

I actually thought for a moment there that this was going to become one of my favourite reads of all time and while I still believe it is a fabulously crafted tale I felt terribly let down by the ending and that took much of the shine off the book for me. So nearly a 5...

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Aug 08, 2011 Rosslyn added it

This is an epic story, set in a future world. It is a harrowing tale of a brother and sisters escape to the North where they hope to find a free, peaceful and fertile world. There are many dark adventures along the way. It is a well written, but very bleak novel.

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Jan 02, 2013 Heidi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Astoundingly good. Lessing's storytelling is brilliant as she ushers readers on a nail-biting journey across post-apocalyptic Africa with two children. I am not a science fiction lover and it blows my mind that Lessing's mastery had me riveted to the end.

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Sep 28, 2012 Carl rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 30, 2010 iona rated it 5 of 5 stars

this is an awesome book, especially for people who love the kind of sci/fantasy that is more social fiction than tech-y. it takes place 10,000 years in Earth's future during a major glacial advance, and humans may be slowly going extinct. mara and dann are a kind of Arthurian/Morgan Le Fay brother and sister pair (or adam & eve) who go on a quest through diverse and warring societies on Earth.

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Apr 09, 2010 Justin Howe rated it 5 of 5 stars

It took about twenty pages for Lessing's style to hook me, but when it did this book quickly became a page turner. The POV might be too distant for some tastes.

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Dec 31, 2012 Wanjiru rated it 4 of 5 stars

It has been so long since I read a real adventure that transported me to another world, literally! I was scared which is rare: A joy to read.

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May 19, 2011 Cheryl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library, favorites

Very interesting and well-written book about a brother and sister in a post-apocalyptic world, thousands of years after global warming has caused Africa to be the only inhabitable continent. The brother, Dann, and sister, Mara, are refugees who travel North from drought-ridden and warlike South Africa in search of a better life. They make friends and enemies along the way, and share incredible experiences as they travel. [return][return]The characters are complex and authentic, and the story of...more

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About Doris Lessing

Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Oliv...more Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high school (such as Olive Schreiner and Nadine Gordimer), Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual.

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and had two children. A few years later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group; shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.

During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.

In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in 1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.

In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.

She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

(Extracted from the pamphlet: A Reader's Guide to The Golden Notebook & Under My Skin, HarperPerennial, 1995. Full text available on www.dorislessing.org).(less)

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avg rating	preview: Mara and Dann Goodreads rating: 3.76 (617 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54215.Mara_and_Dann?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347366486l/54215.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54215.Mara_and_Dann?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Mara and Dann by Doris Lessing[/url]

Mara and Dann

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