Lessing’s publisher, HarperCollins UK confirmed an earlier report by The Guardian newspaper on Sunday that Doris Lessing had passed away.

"We're devastated to hear about the death of the inimitable Doris Lessing. An inspirational writer, pioneer and woman. We'll miss her," a statement posted via the publisher’s Twitter account said.

Her editor at HarperCollins, Nicholas Pearson, said in a statement that Lessing’s career had been "a great gift" to the literary world.

"She wrote across a variety of genres and made an enormous cultural impact," Pearson added. "Even in very old age she was always intellectually restless, reinventing herself, curious about the changing world around us, always completely inspirational. We'll miss her hugely."

Her longtime friend and agent John Clowes said the author had passed away in the early hours of Sunday.

"It was a privilege to work for her and we shall miss her immensely," Clowes said in comments quoted by the AFP news agency.

Lessing, who was born in Kermanshah in what was then Persia in 1919, grew up in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. She spent the final more than 50 years of her life in London.

Lessing became the oldest ever author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, when she was 88. The Swedish Academy, which hands out the award, praised her for her "skepticism, fire and visionary power."

pfd/msh (AP, dpa, AFP)