At last I understood that the way over, or through this dilemma, the unease at writing about 'petty personal problems' was to recognize that nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one's own. Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotions—and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas—can't be yours alone. [...] Growing up is after all only the understanding that one's unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.

When asked why Doris Lessing explained:


Doris Lessing Society
The Doris Lessing Society is dedicated to supporting the scholarly study of Lessing’s work. Alfred Tayler and his wife moved to Kermanshah Iran in order to take up a job as a clerk for the Imperial Bank of Persia and it was there that Doris was born in 1919.

Doris May Lessing CH (née Tayler; born 22 October 1919) is a British novelist poet playwright librettist biographer and short story writer. Her novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950) the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–69) The Golden Notebook (1962) The Good Terrorist (1985) and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983).