LESSING SAYS 9/11 'NOT THAT BAD' !

Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing has said that the 11 September attacks were "not that terrible" compared to the IRA's terror campaign. "Some Americans will think I'm crazy... but it was neither as terrible or as extraordinary as they think," the writer told Spanish newspaper El Pais. The 88-year-old added that "people forget" the IRA bomb attack on Margaret Thatcher's government in 1984.

Lessing won the Nobel prize, worth £763,000, honouring her 57-year career. Five people died and 34 were injured when an IRA bomb exploded in a Brighton hotel where leading members of the Conservative party - including Mrs Thatcher - were staying for its annual conference.

The author conceded that "many people died and two prominent buildings fell" in the attacks on New York's World Trade Center in 2001. "They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be," she added of Americans.

Lessing, whose novels include The Golden Notebook and Memoirs of a Survivor, also branded President George W Bush "a world calamity". "Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars." The writer also said that she "always hated Tony Blair from the beginning".

Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for her "fire and visionary power", and is due to collect her award at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December.

BBC NEWS REPORT.