Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood at demonstration.jpg
Margaret Atwood at a demonstration in 1988
Born November 18, 1939 (1939-11-18) (age 69)
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Occupation Novelist, Poet
Nationality Canadian
Writing period 1960s to present
Genres Romance, Historical fiction, Speculative fiction, Dystopian fiction
Notable work(s) The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, Surfacing
Official website

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, CC (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian writer. A prolific poet, novelist, literary critic, feminist and activist, she is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award seven times, winning twice. Atwood is among the most-honored authors of fiction in recent history.[1] While she is best known for her work as a novelist, her poetry is noteworthy.[2] Many of her poems have been inspired by myths, and fairy tales, which were an interest of hers from an early age. Atwood has also published short stories in Tamarack Review, Alphabet, Harper's, CBC Anthology, Ms., Saturday Night, Playboy, and many other magazines.

Contents

Life

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Atwood is the second of three children of Carl Edmund Atwood, an entomologist, and Margaret Dorothy Killiam, a former dietitian and nutritionist.[3] 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 11 years old. 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.[3]

Atwood began writing at age six and realized she wanted to write professionally when she was 16. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria University 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.[3]

In late 1961, after winning the E.J. Pratt Medal for her privately printed book of poems, Double Persephone, she began graduate studies at Harvard's Radcliffe College with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. She obtained a master's degree (MA) 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” in 1967. She has taught at the University of British Columbia (1965), Sir George Williams University in Montreal (1967-68), the University of Alberta (1969-79), York University in Toronto (1971-72), and New York University, where she was Berg Professor of English.

In 1968, Atwood married Jim Polk, whom she divorced in 1973. She formed a relationship with fellow novelist Graeme Gibson soon after and moved to Alliston, Ontario, north of Toronto. In 1976 their daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, was born. Atwood returned to Toronto in 1980. She divides her time between Toronto and Pelee Island, Ontario.

In March 2008 it was announced by Atwood, via television hookup between Toronto and Vancouver, that she had accepted her first chamber opera commission. 'Pauline' will be on the subject of Pauline Johnson, a writer and Canadian artist long a subject of fascination to Atwood. It will star Judith Forst, with music by Christos Hatzis, and be produced by City Opera of Vancouver. 'Pauline' will be set at Vancouver, British Columbia, in March 1913, in the last week in the life of Johnson.

Critical reception

The Economist called her a 'scintillating wordsmith' and an 'expert literary critic', but commented that her logic doesn't match her prose in Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.[4]

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.[5] Atwood and her partner Graeme Gibson are currently members of the Green Party of Canada and strong supporters of GPC leader Elizabeth May, whom Atwood has referred to as fearless, honest, reliable and knowledgeable. In the 2008 federal election she attended a rally for the Bloc Québécois, 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.[6] In a Globe and Mail editorial, she urged Canadians to vote for any other party to stop a Conservative majority.[7]

Atwood has strong views on environmental issues,[8] such as suggesting that gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers be banned, and has made her own home more energy efficient – including not having air-conditioning - by installing awnings and skylights that open. She and her partner also use a hybrid car when they are in the city.

During the debate in 1987 over a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, Atwood came out against the deal. Her opposition included an essay she wrote opposing the agreement.[9]

Works

Novels

  • The Edible Woman (1969)
  • Surfacing (1972)
  • Lady Oracle (1976)
  • Life Before Man (1979, finalist for the Governor General's Award)
  • Bodily Harm (1981)
  • The Handmaid's Tale (1985, winner of the 1987 Arthur C. Clarke Award and 1985 Governor General's Award, finalist for the 1986 Booker Prize)
  • Cat's Eye (1988, finalist for the 1988 Governor General's Award and the 1989 Booker Prize)
  • The Robber Bride (1993, finalist for the 1994 Governor General's Award)
  • Alias Grace (1996, winner of the 1996 Giller Prize, finalist for the 1996 Booker Prize and the 1996 Governor General's Award)
  • The Blind Assassin (2000, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize and finalist for the 2000 Governor General's Award)
  • Oryx and Crake (2003, finalist for the 2003 Booker Prize and the 2003 Governor General's Award_)
  • The Penelopiad (2005, longlisted for the 2007 IMPAC Award)

Atwood is scheduled to publish a new novel in 2009. The book's title was initially reported in some media as God's Gardeners, although Atwood later confirmed that this was not the intended title.

Poetry collections

  • Double Persephone (1961)
  • The Circle Game (1964, winner of the 1966 Governor General's Award)
  • 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)
  • Love songs of a Terminator (1983)
  • Interlunar (1984)
  • Morning in the Burned House (1996)
  • Eating Fire: Selected Poems, 1965-1995 (1998)
  • The Door (2007)

Short fiction collections

  • Dancing Girls (1977, winner of the St. Lawrence Award for Fiction and the award of The Periodical Distributors of Canada for Short Fiction)
  • Murder in the Dark (1983)
  • Bluebeard's Egg (1983)
  • Through the One-Way Mirror (1986)
  • Wilderness Tips (1991, finalist for the Governor General's Award)
  • Good Bones (1992)
  • Good Bones and Simple Murders (1994)
  • The Labrador Fiasco (1996)
  • The Tent (2006)
  • Moral Disorder (2006)

Anthologies edited

  • The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse (1982)
  • The Canlit Foodbook (1987)
  • The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English (1988)
  • The Best American Short Stories 1989 (1989) (with Shannon Ravenel)
  • The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English (1995)

Children's books

  • Up in the Tree (1978)
  • Anna's Pet (1980) with Joyce C. Barkhouse
  • For the Birds (1990) (with Shelly Tanaka)
  • Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut (1995)
  • Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes (2003)
  • Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda (2006)

Non-fiction

  • Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972)
  • Days of the Rebels 1815-1840 (1977)
  • Second Words: Selected Critical Prose (1982)
  • Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature (1995)
  • Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (2002)
  • Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982-2004 (2004)
  • Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose--1983-2005 (2005)
  • Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (2008)

Drawings

  • Kanadian Kultchur Komix featuring "Survivalwoman" in This Magazine under the pseudonym, Bart Gerrard 1975-1980
  • Others appear on her website.

Wheel-show (1978-1981) for Times Magazine

Notes

References

Awards

External links

Interviews

Persondata
NAME Atwood, Margaret Eleanor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Canadian
DATE OF BIRTH
PLACE OF BIRTH Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH