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Margaret Atwood
was born in 1939 in Ottawa, Canada. The fact that her father was a forest
entomologist meant that she had an unusual upbringing, living in the Quebec
bush land. She only attended school full time when she was 8, when her family
moved to Toronto. Her childhood would later influence the writing of “Wilderness
Tips” (1991).
In 1961, Margaret Atwood was awarded a BA by Victoria
College (University of Toronto), and in the following year, she was awarded her
MA by Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Northrop Fry is believed
to have influenced Atwood while she was studying at Toronto with his myth criticism and Jungian ideas.
She went on to do more postgraduate work at Harvard, but never completed her
PhD. She has taught English at a variety of academic institutions. Margaret
Atwood made her literary debut at the age of 19, with a poetry collection
called “Double Persephone”, which went on to win the E. J. Pratt medal, despite
being privately published. She won the Canadian Governor General’s Award for
poetry in 1966 with another poetry collection entitled “The Circle
Game”. Margaret Atwood went on to work for the publishers Anansi in Toronto
in the early 70s, where she published “Survival:
a Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature”. Some critics were taken aback by
its wit, and by its accusation that much of Canadian literature was subservient
colonial pap. The question of ‘Canadian nationality’ is a theme that she has
returned to in other works, and it could be argued that her own, innovative
literature has helped give her nation a more assertive voice.
Margaret Atwood’s first novel, “The Edible Woman”, was published in 1969. This was followed by “Surfacing” in 1972, “Lady Oracle” in 1976, “Life Before Man” (1979), and “Bodily Harm” in 1981. 1985 saw the publication of perhaps Margaret Atwood’s most famous novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, which presented a dystopian vision of a future where the Religious Right has dominated North America, and in doing so, they have rolled back all the achievements of feminism. Fertility has decreased dramatically, but fertile women have been made subservient to their more affluent masters. The novel won the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award, but it should have won the Booker Prize also. It was later made into a film, with the screenplay written by the Nobel Prize winning author Harold Pinter. Margaret Atwood’s next novel, “Cat’s Eye”, was published in 1989, followed by “The Robber Bride” in 1993, and “Alias Grace” in 1996, which won the Giller Prize. In 2000, Margaret Atwood won the Booker Prize with “The Blind Assassin”, which also won the Governor General’s Award, although many critics do not consider it to be her best book. She followed this up in 2003 with the very fine “Oryx and Crake”. At the time, I took umbrage when she said, “Had I written it 20 years ago, I would have called it science fiction… but now it's speculative fiction”, since I considered it to be a denigration of science fiction. Having read the same comment again though, I realise that Margaret Atwood was merely making the pertinent point that science itself has caught up with science fiction.
Margaret Atwood has also produced a great number of poetry
collections: “Expeditions” (1965), “Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein” (1966),
“The Animals in that Country” (1968), “The
Journals of Susanna Moodie” (1970), “Procedures
for Underground” (1970), “Power
Politics” (1971), “You are Happy” (1974), “Selected Poems” (1976),
“Two-Headed Poems” (1978), “True
Stories” (1981), “Interlunar”
(1984), “Morning
in the Burned House” (1996), “Eating Fire: Selected Poems 1965-1995”
(1998), and “The Door”
(2007). She has also published several short story collections: “Dancing
Girls” (1977), “Murder in
the Dark” (1983), “Bluebeard’s
Egg” (1983), and “Good Bones
and Simple Murders” (1994), and 2006 saw the publication of “The Tent”
and “Moral
Disorder”. There have been a few children’s books: “Up in the
Tree” (1978), “Anna’s Pet” (1980), “For the Birds”
(1990), “Princess
Prunella and the Purple Peanut” (1995), and 2006 saw the publication of “Rude
Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes”, and “Bashful
Bob and Doleful Dorinda”. Margaret Atwood has also published some works of
non-fiction: “Days of the Rebels 1815-1814” (1977), “Strange
Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature”, and “Negotiating
with the Dead: A Writer on Writing” (2002), and 2006 will see the
publication of “Curious
Pursuits: Occasional Writing”.
In 2004, Margaret Atwood got together with some technical
folk and invented the Unotchit (“You-No-Touch-It”), a device that allows an
author to given book signings from home. It sounds like science fiction, but is
actually a practical application of video conferencing technology combined with
a tablet computer and a sophisticated printer. This technology is due to come
online in 2006, and is designed to save the author valuable time, and to made
book tours cheaper for publishers (since they won’t have to pay for plane fares
and hotel rooms). Margaret Atwood’s latest book is “The
Penelopiad”, a reinterpretation of Odysseus’ famous homecoming. Margaret
Atwood lives in Toronto with her husband, the novelist Graeme Gibson.
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Four Short Pieces – some
Margaret Atwood prose published in “Daedalus” in 2005
Aliens
have taken the place of Angels – Margaret Atwood on why we need science
fiction
Tour-de-farce
– Margaret Atwood’s account of a visit to Britain in 1964, an extract from
“Curious Pursuits”
Orwell
and me – Margaret Atwood’s article about George Orwell’s lasting effect on
her
Mystery
Writer – Margaret Atwood’s article about Dashiell Hammett
The
Indelible Woman –Margaret Atwood on how Virginia Woolf’s “To The
Lighthouse” mystified her on first reading
My shameful
publishing secret – Diana Athill’s account of how her publishing firm lost
Margaret Atwood from its lists
For
God and Gilead – Margaret Atwood’s reaction to “The Handmaid’s Tale” being
turned into an opera
A Letter to America
– from 2003, Margaret Atwood’s reaction to the Iraq War
Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel really is
chilling – Margaret Atwood’s review of “Never Let Me Go”
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She’s Left Holding the Fort – Phyllida
Lloyd and Margaret Atwood discuss the performance of “The Penelopiad”
Margaret
Atwood talks with Patrick Lane – a dialogue published in “The Washington
Post” in 2005
You
ask the questions – Margaret Atwood fields questions from the public for
“The Independent” in 2004
Do
Keep Up – Emma Brockes’ interview in “The Guardian” from 2004
Margaret
Atwood complex in writing and in conversation – Susan Whitney’s interview
from 2004
Fear
is her forte – an “Independent on Sunday” profile of Margaret Atwood from
2003
Double
Bluff – Katharine Viner’s interview in “The Guardian” from 2000
The
Character Assassin – Susan Flockhart’s interview in “The Sunday Herald”
from 2000
Blood and Laundry –
Laura Miller’s interview from 1997
Don’t
ask for the truth – Mark Abley’s interview from 1996 in “The Guardian”
Interview with
Margaret Atwood – Raymond H. Thompson’s interview from 1991, about the
Arthurian themes in some of her work
Wired for Books – Don
Swaim’s audio interview with Margaret Atwood from 1986
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Anti-edibles: capitalism and schizophrenia in
Margaret Atwood’s “The Edible Woman” –
Jennifer Hobgood’s essay
Science
for feminists: Margaret Atwood’s body of knowledge – June Deery’s essay
Reconnecting
with the past: Personal Hauntings in Margaret Atwood’s “The Robber Bride” –
Donna Bontatibus’ essay
You
are what you eat: the Politics of Eating in the novels of Margaret Atwood –
Emma Parker’s essay
Paradise
Lost, Paradise Regained: homo faber and the Makings of a New Beginning in “Oryx
and Crake” – Danette DiMarco’s essay
Constructing
the self through memory: “Cat’s Eye” as a novel of female development –
Carol Osborne’s essay
The
treatment of female protagonists in Margaret Atwood’s “Bodily Harm” and “The
Handmaid’s Tale” – Justine Benoit’s essay
Rewriting Canonical
Portrayals of Women: Margaret Atwood’s “Gertrude Talks Back” – Pilar Cuder
Dominguez’s essay
Feminist
implications of Anti-Leisure in Dystopian Fiction – an essay by Margaret J.
Daniels and Heather E. Bowen
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Birden, Lorene M. ""Sortir
de l'Auberge": Strategies of (False) Narration in Atwood and Triolet"
Comparative Literature Studies - Volume 39, Number 2, 2002, pp. 120-145
Penn State University Press
Michael,
Magali Cornier "Rethinking History as Patchwork: The Case of Atwood's
Alias Grace"
MFS Modern Fiction Studies - Volume 47, Number 2, Summer 2001, pp. 421-447
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Parkin-Gounelas,
Ruth 1950- ""What isn't there" in Margaret Atwood's The Blind
Assassin: The Psychoanalysis of Duplicity"
MFS Modern Fiction Studies - Volume 50, Number 3, Fall 2004, pp. 681-700
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Staels,
Hilde "Intertexts of Atwood's Alias Grace"
MFS Modern Fiction Studies - Volume 46, Number 2, Summer 2000, pp. 427-450
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Freibert,
Lucy M. 1922- "Brutal Choreographies: Oppositional Strategies and
Narrative Design in the Novels of Margaret Atwood"
MFS Modern Fiction Studies - Volume 40, Number 4, Winter 1994, pp. 870-872
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Harold,
James "Narrative Engagement with Atonement and The Blind Assassin"
Philosophy and Literature - Volume 29, Number 1, April 2005, pp. 130-145
The Johns Hopkins University Press
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