DL/A-Z//DISKI J/1 - [Correspondence with Jenny Diski 1970s]

DL/A-Z//DISKI J/1

Sub-file

[Correspondence with Jenny Diski 1970s]

02/03/1970

2 Letters (typescript and MS)

Diski, Jenny

001 is a letter from Jenny Diski to Doris Lessing. She describes [in response to a request] the medical treatment that an amnesiac might be given if they were put into a psychiatric hospital. She goes into great detail, basing this on her own and her friends' experiences. She describes her experience of being and English woman living in Paris, and refers to the 1968 protests in France. Discussing police brutality, she quotes Leonard Cohen. She discusses negotiating chauvinism and harassment while trying to find work as a model and typist. Mentions Luchino Visconti's film The Damned and Diski's own screenwriting efforts.

002 is an undated letter from Diski to Lessing. She describes a frightening psychological experience: "All kinds of awful emotional, almost evil things were going on and I suddenly saw that we'd really switched into the wavelength of Madness – and it was using us." A potential reference to psychedelics ("trip-friend") contextualises this. Mentions doing work for a documentary about the 1968 protests for Essex University.