The Old Age of El Magnifico

In her early, celebrated collection of stories, "Particularly Cats & Rufus the Survivor", Doris Lessing gave us a brilliant evocation of feline existence. With her intensely visual imagination and cool, precise eye, Doris Lessing comes nearer than any other writer to understanding the elusive nature of cats.

"The Old Age of El Magnifico" is a new tale about an awkwardly loveable cat, "an enormous lordly beast, a harlequinade of black and white", who in his later years, because of illness, must suffer the great indignity of becoming a three-legged cat. Unsentimental, unwhimsical, unmistakably Lessing, this story insinuates itself into the imagination with skill and grace.