Lessing to miss Nobel investiture

The 88-year-old author is unable to travel to the Swedish capital on 10 December because she is suffering from a bad back, the Nobel Foundation said.

Lessing, the oldest writer to win the award, will be presented with the $1.5m (£725,000) prize in London.

British playwright Harold Pinter was unable to attend the ceremony due to illness after winning in 2005.

Literary career

In 2004, Austrian Elfriede Jelinek declined the invitation because she was "not in a mental shape to withstand such ceremonies".

Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature traditionally deliver a lecture in Stockholm before accepting their award.

Lessing's lecture has been pre-recorded and will be shown at the Academy three days ahead of the investiture, according to the Nobel Foundation.

Winners of other Nobel prizes, including chemistry and medicine, will also be presented with their awards at the 10 December ceremony.

Lessing, whose works include The Golden Notebook and Memoirs of a Survivor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in September in honour of her 57-year literary career.

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