The Good Terrorist
Format:Paperback
Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers
Published:17th Jan '13
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A satirical and masterful novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author, updated for 2026 with a new introduction by Donal Ryan
Exploring the paradox and fantasy of ideological purity, The Good Terrorist is at once a perennially relevant satire and a complex character-study by Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing.
Exploring the paradox and fantasy of ideological purity, The Good Terrorist is at once a perennially relevant satire and a complex character-study by Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing.
In a dilapidated London squat, a ragged band of bourgeois revolutionaries is bound together by a furious disgust at the waste and cruelty they see in the world around them. Ill-suited and ill-prepared, they soon become involved in acts of terrorism far beyond their competence. Alice, motherly, practical and fiercely determined, becomes both the group’s organiser and its easiest victim – the perfect prey for a darker, more dangerous cause. When naive, radical fantasies become real, chaotic destruction, nothing in their lives will ever be the same again.
'In "The Good Terrorist" we are in the world of the subsidized sub-culture of the Marxist groupuscules of contemporary Britain...Lessing has a wit, an indignation and a narrative agility which leave few left-wing sacred cows unscathed...hugely enjoyable.' Sunday Times 'Doris Lessing writes about the parts other novelists cannot reach. This is a totally absorbing, subtly observed, complicated and stimulating novel.' Observer '"The Good Terrorist" is a work of acute intelligence, incisive and compelling...it shows Doris Lessing at her mature best.' Listener Praise for Doris Lessing: 'Doris Lessing has changed the way we think about the world.' Blake Morrison 'Thank goodness for Doris Lessing. While the rest of us flounder about noisily in the muddy waters of life, she never fails to expose with startling clarity the essential folly of our dreams and good intentions.' Kate Chisholm, Evening Standard 'She's up there in the pantheon with Balzac and George Eliot. We're lucky she's still writing.' Lisa Appignanesi, Independent
ISBN: 9780007498789
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 25mm
Weight: 270g
400 pages