Ben, in the World is a novel written by Doris Lessing, published in 2000, in which she stages a parody of the 'objectivity' of the narrator's voice.

Johnston comes up with a plan to use Ben to smuggle a large amount of narcotics into France, which would give him and Rita enough money to permanently get off the streets.

Johnston also sees this as an opportunity to get Ben out of their lives by leaving him in France, a plan that Rita is aware of, and objects to, but ultimately doesn't do anything about.

The plan succeeds, and Ben remains in France under the temporary care of Richard, one of Johnston's men, in an expensive hotel, with a cut from the smuggling deal.

Teresa grows attached to Ben, and introduces him to several friends, including Inez, who is privileged and works in a compound as a scientist.

Watkins observes that in Ben, in the World prolepsis is used to a humorous effect by which the 'objectivity' of the narrator's voice is being parodied.

Another effect of this is, according to Watson, that the reliability of perception is questioned and that any 'commons sense' judgments about Ben's alleged difference from others are called into doubt.

[3] By its depicting an outsider, Ben, in the World has been seen as comparable to Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853) by Herman Melville, to The Metamorphosis (1912) by Franz Kafka, to The Stranger (1942) by Albert Camus, to Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell, to The Bluest Eye (1970) by Toni Morrison, and to Unaccustomed Earth (2008) by Jhumpa Lahiri.