THREE thousand books from Doris Lessing’s personal library will be making the 5,000-mile journey from West Hampstead to Harare this year.

The beneficiaries of the will drawn up by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, who lived in Gondar Gardens, have agreed that the books should go to the Zimbabwean capital’s leading public library.

Ms Lessing, who died last year aged 88, lived in Zimbabwe for a quarter of a century. Much of her work is set in the African republic, including her first novel, The Grass is Singing. The gift has been welcomed by the mayor of Harare, Bernard Manyenyeni, who called it “a magnificent gesture”.

Famously, the writer only learned of her Nobel Prize victory from reporters who greeted her at the front door of her West Hampstead home on her return from a shopping trip.