Mara and Dann: An Adventure

Doris Lessing

Flamingo, 1999 - Africa - 407 pages

Thousands of years in the future, all the northern hemisphere is buried under the ice and snow of a new Ice Age. At the southern end of a large landmass called Ifrik, two children of the Mahondi people, seven-year old Mara and her younger brother, Dann, are abducted from their home in the middle of the night. Raised as outsiders in a poor rural village, Mara and Dann learn to survive the hardships and dangers of a life threatened as much by an unforgiving climate and menacing animals as by a hostile community of Rock People. Eventually they join the great human migration North, away from the drought that is turning the southern land to dust, and in search of a place with enough water and food to support human life. Traveling across the continent, the siblings enter cities rife with crime, power struggles, and corruption, learning as much about human nature as about how societies function. With a clear-eyed vision of the human condition, "Mara and Dann" is imaginative fiction at its best.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - burritapal - LibraryThing

I loved this story about a brother and sister, last of a royal family, travelling the length of Ifrik. This is an Africa that is thousands of years in the future, when another ice age is retreating ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - TheAmpersand - LibraryThing

Dystopias seem to be very much in fashion these days, so it's quite possible that other authors have covered the sort of themes dealt with in "Mara and Dann," and it's even possible that they've done ...

About the author

Doris Lessing was born in Kermanshah, Persia (later Iran) on October 22, 1919 and grew up in Rhodesia (the present-day Zimbabwe). During her two marriages, she submitted short fiction and poetry for publication. After moving to London in 1949, she published her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, in 1950. She is best known for her 1954 Somerset Maugham Award-winning experimental novel The Golden Notebook. Her other works include This Was the Old Chief's Country, the Children of Violence series, the Canopus in Argos - Archives series, and Alfred and Emily. She has received numerous awards for her work including the 2001 Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, the David Cohen British Literature Prize, and the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature. She died on November 17, 2013 at the age of 94.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mara and Dann: An Adventure
• Author: Doris Lessing
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Flamingo, 1999
• ISBN: 0002256398, 9780002256391
• Length: 407 pages