Doris Lessing leaves books to Zimbabwe library

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing, who died in November, bequeathed her collection of 3,000 books to the Harare, Zimbabwe, library.

Lessing lived in the country, then known as Southern Rhodesia, from 1929 to 1949, and attempted to return in 1956, when she learned she was a "prohibited migrant" because of her liberal racial and political views.

She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, and died in England at age 94. She supported numerous literacy charities in Zimbabwe, and her executors said Book Aid International, another of her favorite charities, has begun transporting her collection to Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.

Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni told the newspaper Zimbabwe Herald Lessing's gift was a "magnificent gesture" that expressed "her love for this country beyond her death."

"We have every reason to feel special to have earned this much in her wishes. We are delighted and grateful as any city would be," Manyenyeni added.