Margaret Atwood (Canada, 1939)
Margaret Atwood is an award-winning Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, and environmental activist. Atwood was born in Ottawa to a nutritionist mother and entomologist father who fostered a love of nature. She grew up in Quebec and completed her studies at Victoria College at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1961. Over the course of her career, Atwood went on to teach at a variety of colleges and universities in both Canada and the United States.
Atwood’s novels describe strong female characters and her work has been frequently qualified as feminist. A recurrent theme in Atwood’s work is dystopias and speculative fiction, what she defines as what “could really happen”, contractility to science function which “has monsters and spaceships”. Some of Atwood’s novels have been adapted for television, including The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace.
“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.”
The Handmaid's Tale
The Handsmaid's Tale
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births...
Alias Grace
It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders...
Oryx and Crake
Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake...
The Blind Assassin
"Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge". More than fifty years on, Iris Chase is remembering Laura's mysterious death. And so begins and extraordinary and compelling story of two sisters and their secrets...