Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood in 2009. Photo by Lesekreis. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Margaret Atwood
Born	November 18, 1939 (1939-11-18) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Canadian
Period	1953 to present
Genres	romance, historical fiction, speculative fiction, science fiction, dystopian fiction
Notable work(s)	The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, Surfacing
Influences William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, John Buchan, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Alice Munro, Jack London
Influenced Kazuo Ishiguro, Orhan Pamuk, Graeme Gibson, Laura Moriarty, Barbara Kingsolver

Margaret Eleanor "Peggy" Atwood, CC, O.Ont, FRSC (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist.

Life

Overview

While she may be best known for her work as a novelist, Atwood is also a proficient poet, having published 15 books of poetry to date.

Atwood has published short stories in Tamarack Review, Alphabet, Harper's, CBC Anthology, Ms., Saturday Night, and many other magazines. She has also published 4 collections of stories and 3 collections of unclassifiable short prose works.

Life

Youth

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Atwood is the 2nd of 3 children, born to Margaret Dorothy (Killam), a former dietitian and nutritionist, and Carl Edmund Atwood, an entomologist.

Due to her father's ongoing research in forest entomology, Atwood spent much of her childhood in the backwoods of Northern Quebec and back and forth between Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, and Toronto. She did not attend school full-time until she was in 8th grade. She became a voracious reader of literature, Dell pocketbook mysteries, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Canadian animal stories, and comic books. She attended Leaside High School in Leaside, Toronto and graduated in 1957.

Atwood began writing at age 6, and realized she wanted to write professionally when she was 16. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. Her professors included Jay Macpherson, and Northrop Frye. She graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts in English (honours) and minors in philosophy and French.

In late 1961, she began graduate studies at Harvard's Radcliffe College with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. She obtained a master's degree (M.A.) from Radcliffe in 1962 and pursued further graduate studies at Harvard University for 2 years, but never finished because she never completed a dissertation on "The English Metaphysical Romance".

She has taught at the University of British Columbia (1965), Sir George Williams University in Montreal (1967-68), the University of Alberta (1969-70), York University in Toronto (1971-72), the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa (1985), where she was visiting M.F.A. Chair, and New York University, where she was Berg Professor of English.

Private life

In 1968, Atwood married Jim Polk; they were divorced in 1973. She formed a relationship with fellow novelist Graeme Gibson soon after and moved to a farm near Alliston, Ontario, north of Toronto. In 1976 their daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, was born. The family returned to Toronto in 1980. She divides her time between Toronto, Pelee Island, Ontario, and northern Quebec. (Citation needed)

Chamber opera

In March 2008 it was announced by Atwood that she had accepted her 1st chamber opera commission: Pauline, on the subject of Pauline Johnson, a writer and Canadian artist long a subject of fascination to Atwood, starring Judith Forst, with music by Christos Hatzis, produced by City Opera of Vancouver. Pauline was set in Vancouver, British Columbia in March 1913, in the last week of Johnson's life.

Political involvement

Although Atwood's politics are commonly described as being left wing, she has indicated in interviews that she considers herself a Red Tory in the historical sense of the term. Atwood and her partner Graeme Gibson are members of the Green Party of Canada and strong supporters of GPC leader Elizabeth May. Atwood has strong views on environmental issues, and she and her partner are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Club within BirdLife International. She has been Chair of the Writers' Union of Canada and President of PEN Canada, and is currently a Vice President of PEN International. In the 2008 federal election she attended a rally for the Bloc Quebecois, a Quebec separatist party, because of her support for their position on the arts, and stated that she would vote for the party if she lived in Quebec. In a Globe and Mail editorial, she urged Canadians to vote for any other party to stop a Conservative majority.

During the debate in 1987 over a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, Atwood spoke out against the deal, including an essay she wrote opposing the agreement.

Atwood celebrated her 70^th birthday at a gala dinner at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, marking the final stop of her international tour to promote The Year of the Flood. She stated that she had chosen to attend the event because the city has been home to one of Canada's most ambitious environmental reclamation programs: "When people ask if there's hope (for the environment), I say, if Sudbury can do it, so can you. Having been a symbol of desolation, it's become a symbol of hope."

Despite calls for a boycott by Gazan students, and a request to boycott from PACBI Atwood visited Israel -accepted the $1,000,000 Dan David Prize along with Indian author Amitav Ghosh at Tel Aviv University in May 2010. Atwood commented that "we don't do cultural boycotts".

In the Wake of the Flood, a documentary film by Canadian director Ron Mann released in October 2010, followed Atwood on the unusual book tour for her novel The Year of the Flood. During this innovative book tour, Atwood created a theatrical version of her novel, with performers borrowed from the local areas she was visiting. The documentary is described as "a fly-on-the-wall cinema verite."

Writing

Many of her poems have been inspired by myths and fairy tales, which have been interests of hers from an early age.

Critical reception

The Economist called her a "scintillating wordsmith" and an "expert literary critic", but commented that her logic does not match her prose in Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, a book which commences with the conception of debt and its kinship with justice. Atwood claims that this conception is ingrained in the human psyche, manifest as it is in early historical peoples, who matched their conceptions of debt with those of justice as typically exemplified by a female deity. Atwood holds that, with the rise of Ancient Greece, and especially the installation of the court system detailed in Aeschylus's Oresteia, this deity has been replaced by a more thorough conception of debt.

In 2003, Shaftesbury Films produced an anthology series, The Atwood Stories, which dramatized six of Atwood's short stories.

Atwood and science fiction

The Handmaid's Tale received the very first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. The award is given for the best science fiction novel that was first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. It was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, and the 1987 Prometheus Award, both science fiction awards.

Atwood was at one time offended at the suggestion that The Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake were science fiction, insisting to The Guardian that they were speculative fiction instead: "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." She told the Book of the Month Club: "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians." and on BBC Breakfast explained that science fiction, as opposed to what she wrote, was "talking squids in outer space." The latter phrase particularly rankled among advocates of science fiction, and frequently recurs when her writing is discussed.

Atwood has since said that she does at times write Social science fiction, and that Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake can be designated as such. She clarified her meaning on the difference between speculative and science fiction, while admitting that others use the terms interchangeably: "For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do.... speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand and that takes place on Planet Earth", and said that science fictional narratives give a writer the ability to explore themes in ways that realistic fiction cannot.

Contribution to the theorizing of Canadian identity

Atwood's contributions to the theorizing of Canadian identity have garnered attention both in Canada and internationally. Her principal work of literary criticism, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, is considered outdated in Canada but remains the standard introduction to Canadian literature in Canadian Studies programs internationally. In Survival, Atwood postulates that Canadian literature, and by extension Canadian identity, is characterized by the symbol of survival. This symbol is expressed in the omnipresent use of 'victim positions' in Canadian literature. These positions represent a scale of self-consciousness and self-actualization for the victim in the â'victor/victim' relationship. The "victor" in these scenarios may be other humans, nature, the wilderness or other external and internal factors which oppress the victim Atwood's Survival bears the influence of Northrop Frye's theory of garrison mentality; Atwood instrumentalizes Frye's concept to a critical tool. More recently, Atwood has continued her exploration of the implications of Canadian literary themes for Canadian identity in lectures such as Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature (1995).

Atwood's contribution to the theorizing of Canada is not limited to her non-fiction works. Several of her poetical and fiction works, including The Journals of Susanna Moodie, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and Surfacing, are examples of what postmodern literary theorist Linda Hutcheon calls 'Historiographic Metafiction'. In such works, Atwood explicitly explores the relation of history and narrative and the processes of creating history.

Ultimately, according to her theories in works such as Survival and her exploration of similar themes in her fiction, Atwood considers Canadian literature as the expression of Canadian identity. According to this literature, Canadian identity has been defined by a fear of nature, by settler history and by unquestioned adherence to the community.

Atwood and animals

Margaret Atwood has repeatedly made observations about our relationships to animals in her works. Atwood offers this observation about eating animals: "The animals die that we may live, they are substitute people...And we eat them, out of cans or otherwise; we are eaters of death, dead Christ-flesh resurrecting inside us, granting us life." Characters in her books link sexual oppression to meat-eating and consequently give up meat-eating. In The Edible Woman, Atwood's character Marian identifies with hunted animals and cries after hearing her fiance's experience of hunting and eviscerating a rabbit. Marian stops eating meat but then later returns to it.

In Cat's Eye, the narrator recognizes the similarity between a turkey and a baby. She looks at "the turkey, which resembles a trussed, headless baby. It has thrown off its disguise as a meal and has revealed itself to me for what it is, a large dead bird." In Atwood's Surfacing, a dead heron represents purposeless killing and prompts thoughts about other senseless deaths.

Recognition

She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize 5 times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Awards 7 times, winning twice.

Atwood has won more than 55 awards in Canada and internationally, including:

Awards

Writer Margaret Atwood gets 2017 Kafka award

Margaret Atwood to Get Literary Lifetime Achievement Award

• Governor General's Award, (1966, 1985)
• Companion of the Order of Canada, 1981
• Guggenheim fellowship, 1981
• Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, 1986
• Arthur C. Clarke Award for best Science Fiction, 1987
• Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1988
• Canadian Booksellers Association Author of the Year, 1989
• Trillium Book Award, 1991, 1993, 1995
• Government of France's Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, 1994
• Booker Prize, 2000
• Prince of Asturias Awards for Literature, 2008
• Nelly Sachs Prize, Germany, 2010
• Kafka Award, 2017

Honorary degrees

Atwood receives honorary degree from Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario. Photo by Victoria Edwards. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

• Trent University, 1973
• Queen's University, 1974
• Concordia University, 1980
• Smith College, 1982
• University of Toronto, 1983
• University of Waterloo, 1985
• University of Guelph, 1985
• Mount Holyoke College, 1985
• Victoria College, 1987
• Universite de Montreal, 1991
• University of Leeds, 1994
• McMaster University, 1996
• Laurentian University, 2001
• Harvard University, 2004
• Ontario College of Art & Design, 2009
• Bard College, 2010
• Royal Military College, 2012

Publications

Poetry

• Double Persephone. Ontario, Canada: Hawkshead Press, 1961.
• The Circle Game. Bloomfield Hills, MI: Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1964
  • revised edition, Toronto: Contact Press, 1966.
  • revised edition, Toronto: Anansi, 1978.
• Kaleidoscopes Baroque: A poem. Bloomfield Hills, MI: Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1965.
• Talismans for Children. Bloomfield Hills, MI: Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1965.
• Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein. Bloomfield Hills, MI: Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1966.
• The Animals in That Country. Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1968
  • Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1969..
• The Journals of Susanna Moodie. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970.
• Procedures for Underground. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970; Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.
• Power Politics. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1971; New York: Harper, 1973.
• You Are Happy. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974; New York: Harper & Row , 1974.
• Selected Poems, 1965-1975. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.
• Marsh Hawk. Toronto: Dreadnaught Press, 1977.
• Two-headed Poems. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1978; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.
• Notes Toward a Poem That Can Never Be Written. Toronto: Salamander Press, 1981.
• True Stories. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.
• Snake Poems. Toronto: Salamander Press, 1983.
• Interlunar. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1984.
• Selected Poems II: Poems selected and new, 1976-1986. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986.
• Morning in the Burned House. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1995; London: Virago Press, 1995; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
• Eating Fire: Selected poetry, 1965-1995. London: Virago Press, 1998.
• Selected Poems. Oxford University Press, 2004.
• The Door. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007; London: Virago, 2009.

Plays

• The Trumpets of Summer (radio play). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC-Radio), 1964.
• The Servant Girl (teleplay). CBC-TV, 1974.
• Snowbird (teleplay). CBC-TV, 1981.
• Heaven on Earth (teleplay; with Peter Pearson). CBC-TV, 1986.

Novels

• The Edible Woman. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1969; Boston: Little, Brown 1970; reprinted, New York: Anchor Press, 1998.
• Surfacing. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973; reprinted, New York: Anchor Press, 1998.
• Lady Oracle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976; reprinted, New York: Anchor Press, 1998.
• Life before Man. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979; reprinted, New York: Anchor Press, 1998.
• Bodily Harm. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1981; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982; reprinted, New York: Anchor Press, 1998.
• Encounters with the Element Man. Concord, NH: William B. Ewert, 1982.
• Unearthing Suite. Toronto: Grand Union Press, 1983.
• The Handmaid's Tale. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1985; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986; reprinted, Phiadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001.
• Cat's Eye. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1988; Garden City, NY: Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1989.
• The Robber Bride. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
• Alias Grace. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
• The Blind Assassin. New York: Random House, 2000.
• Oryx and Crake. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2003.
• The Tent. New York: Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2006.
• The Penelopiad. New York: Canongate US, 2005.
• The Year of the Flood. New York: Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2009.

Short Fiction

• Dancing Girls, and other stories. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982; reprinted, New York: Anchor Press, 1998.
• Bluebeard's Egg, and other stories. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1983; New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1998.
• Murder in the Dark: Short fictions and prose poems. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1983.
• Wilderness Tips and Other Stories. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
• Good Bones. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1992
  • published as Good Bones and Simple Murders. New York: Doubleday, 1994.
• A Quiet Game, and other early works (edited and annotated by Kathy Chung and Sherrill Grace). Edmonton, AB: Juvenilia Press, 1997.
• The Tent. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
• Moral Disorder: and other stories. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2006.

Non-fiction

• Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1972.
• Days of the Rebels, 1815-1840. Natural Science Library, 1976.
• Second Words: Selected Critical Prose. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1982, 2000.
• (Author of introduction) Catherine M. Young, To See Our World. GLC Publishers, 1979, New York: Morrow, 1980.
• Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Some Things about Flying. London: Women's Press, 1997.
• (Author of introduction) Women Writers at Work: The 'Paris Review' interviews (edited by George Plimpton), New York: Random House, 1998.
• Negotiating with the Dead: A writer on writing (lectures). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• (With others) Story of a Nation: Defining Moments in Our History. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2001.
• (Author of introduction) Ground Works: Avant-Garde for thee (edited by Chisitan Bok). Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2002.
• Moving Targets: Writing with intent. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2004.
• (With others) New Beginnings: Sold in aid of the Indian Ocean tsunami earthquake charities. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005.
• Writing with Intent: Essays, reviews, personal prose, 1983-2005. New York: Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2005.
• The Penelopiad (part of the Knopf "Myth Series"), Toronto: Knopf, 2005.
• Curious Pursuits: Occasional writing, 1970-2005. London: Virago, 2005.

Juvenile

• Up in the Tree. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978.
• Anna's Pet (with Joyce Barkhouse). Toronto: James Lorimer, 1980.

For the Birds (illustrated by John Bianchi). Richmond Hill, ON: Firefly Books, 1991.

• Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut (illustrated by Maryann Kovalski). New York: Workman, 1995.
• Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes (illustrated by Dusan Petricic). Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2003.
• Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda (illustrated by Dusan Petricic). Toronto: Key Porter Kids, 2004.

Edited

• The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English.Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982.
• The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English (edited with Robert Weaver). Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986.
• The Canlit Foodbook. New York: Totem Books, 1987.
• The Best American Short Stories, 1989 (edited with Shannon Ravenal).Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989.
• The Poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen (edited, with Barry Callaghan; and author of introduction)Toronto: Exile Editions. Volume 1: The Early Years, 1993; Volume 2: The Later Years, 1994.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Audio / video

Margaret Atwood - The Moment

Talking Volumes Margaret Atwood reads "Night Poem"

• The Poetry and Voice of Margaret Atwood (cassette). New York: Caedmon, 1977.
• Margaret Atwood Reads Unearthing Suite. Columbia, MO: American Audio Prose Library, 1983.

Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Canadian poets
• Timeline of Canadian poetry

References

You Fit into Me - A poem by Margaret Atwood

Habitation (Margaret Atwood Poem)

• Carrington de Papp, I. Margaret Atwood and Her Works. Toronto: EWC, 1985.
• Clements, Pam. "Margaret Atwood and Chaucer: Truth and Lies," in: Cahier Calin: Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honor of William Calin, ed. Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery (Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medievalism, 2011), pp. 39-41.
• Cooke, N. Margaret Atwood: A Biography. Toronto: ECW, 1998.
• Hengen, Shannon and Ashley Thomson. Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007.
• Howells, Coral Ann. Margaret Atwood. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
• Howells, Coral Ann. The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-521-54851-9
• Nischik, Reingard M. Margaret Atwood: Works & Impact. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000. ISBN 1571132694
• Nischik, Reingard M. Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009. ISBN 0776607243
• Rigney, B. Margaret Atwood. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1987.
• Rosenburg H. J. Margaret Atwood. Boston: Twayne, 1984.
• Sullivan, Rosemary. The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out. Toronto: HarperFlamingoCanada, 1998. ISBN 0-00-255423-2

Fonds

• Margaret Atwood papers at Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto

External links

Poems

• "This Is a Photograph of Me"
• Canadian Poetry Online: Margaret Atwood - profile & poem ("In the Secular Night")
• Margaret Atwood profile & 5 poems at the Academy of American Poets.
• Atwood, Margaret - profile & 13 poems (Daguerreotype Taken in Old Age, , The Explorers, Flowers, Habitation, Heart Test with an Echo Chamber, My Mother Dwindles ..., Night Poem, Notes towards a Poem that can never be Written, Postcard, Roominghouse, Winter, She, Siren Song, yes at first) at Representative Poetry Online
• Margaret Atwood b. 1939 at the Poetry Foundation
• Margaret Atwood at PoemHunter (29 poems)

Prose

• Articles by Margaret Atwood on the 5th Estate blog

Audio / video

• Margaret Atwood at The Poetry Archive
• Reading of her poem "From an Italian Postcard Factory" (audio)
• Margaret Atwood poems at YouTube
• CBC Digital Archives - Margaret Atwood: Queen of CanLit
• Audio: Margaret Atwood in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show The Forum
• Audio: Margaret Atwood in conversation with Michael Cunningham at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2007

Books

• Margaret Atwood at Amazon.com
• Margaret Atwood at the Online guide to writing in Canada

About

• Margaret Atwood in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Margaret Atwood at NNDB
• Margaret Atwood Official Website.
• Margaret Atwood on Twitter.
• Margaret Atwood: Bio, excerpts, interviews and articles in the archives of the Prague Writers' Festival
• Mary Morris (Winter 1990). "Margaret Atwood, The Art of Fiction No. 121". Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2262/the-art-of-fiction-no-121-margaret-atwood. 
• Margaret Atwood at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Margaret Atwood at the British Council
• Profile from The Guardian

Etc.

• The Margaret Atwood Society Official website