When was margaret atwood born

Such resilience and tenacity is the stuff of Atwood's fiction, as demonstrated by one of her most enigmatic characters, Offred, the resourceful, enduring heroine of Atwood's nightmarish The Handmaid's Tale As a result of the novel's success, the author has assumed a place among science fiction writers in the wing reserved for eminent dystopians. Margaret Eleanor "Peggy" Atwood, multitalented Canadian essayist, scriptwriter, children's author, fiction writer, and social critic, reached world-class status with the bestselling novel The Handmaid's Tale , a complex and disturbing futuristic thriller that placed the author among the twentieth century's leading feminist writers.

From infancy through most of her childhood, she and her older brother, Harold, backpacked in the north Quebec cutback half the year, abandoning the city and missing weeks of school as her family took to the woods, where her father studied insects.

Atwood's sister Ruth was not born until At the age of six — a year before the family moved from Sault Ste. Marie and settled in Toronto in order to be nearer Carl Atwood's job on the staff of the University of Toronto — Atwood displayed her precocity by composing a self-illustrated verse series, "Rhyming Cats. The Atwoods, both voracious readers, stimulated their pixieish, articulate daughter's intellect without suggesting any particular outlet.

Her interest in writing, encouraged by her aunt, Ann Blades, dates to , then inexplicably enters a dry period to begin again in Atwood's mid-teens, when she wrote for the Leaside High School literary magazine, Clan Call. She was determined to write, even though she doubted that a Canadian could succeed in the U. During this fertile period, she read original verse at the Bohemian Embassy a local coffeehouse and penned satiric cartoons for This Magazine under the pseudonym Bart Gerrard.

In , she graduated with honors and published her first poetry collection, Double Persephone , which earned the E. Pratt Medal. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, she obtained an M. Amongst other things, Atwood writes about art and its creation, the dangers of ideology and sexual politics; she deconstructs myths, fairytales and the classics for a new audience. Her work is often gothic, which is one reason for its wide popularity.

Importantly, though, it is readable: the novel is science fiction as well as literary fiction, and accessible to a wide audience; for Atwood, an ideal reader "is somebody who reads the book on the first read-through to see what happens".

But what lingers most about this novel is its ending: did Offred escape? The postmodern conclusion leaves us with a moving sense of uncertainty, as the author breaks generic boundaries. For many Canadians, Surfacing was, combined with the critical work Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature , a book that gave their literature a life of its own.

Atwood has become increasingly interested in genre fiction, in writing within popular narrative forms, while questioning what they convey. This is the case with Alias Grace , where Peter Kemp felt that the author "confirms her status as the outstanding novelist of our age" The Sunday Times , 8 September Combined with the familiar territory of imprisonment and subjugation, and the mysterious feminine, though, is a crime novel — did she do it, or not?

It is a slow-burning piece, the story of a famous artist returning to Toronto for a major exhibition, and mentally reliving her childhood and teenage years. It becomes clearer as we progress that Elaine Risley is a highly damaged individual, cold and emotionally withdrawn, and we find a partial explanation in the bullying she suffered when young. She is condemned to a life apart, as we see right at the end of the book:. Two old women giggling over their tea.

The spare, detached style is precisely the point, and as fitting for Elaine as it is for Offred. If Atwood is known for novels rather than her poems, this is because of the dominance of the novel in the market; many of her poems convey her characteristic themes concisely and originally. Compared with her recent shorter fiction and stories, this might well be true. Moral Disorder is an intriguing book, for the stories, written separately, are united to form a fictional biography of someone who may or may not be Atwood.

The blurring of subjects suggests a common humanity in age and decay; the end, where the narrator uses her imagination to breathe life into an old photograph, is Atwood at her very best. The comic use of the Greek chorus, who are now a chorus line, is equally good. Alongside this comic energy, though, comes an increasing bleakness in Atwood; in The Tent , and its title story, words are a dubious refuge against a cold world. Atwood donated the prize money to environmental and literary causes.

Her generosity is not at all a surprising development to her many fans. Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood: A Biography. Toronto: ECW Press, Howells, Coral Ann. Margaret Atwood.

New York: St. Martin's Press, Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, Toggle navigation.

Honors and awards Atwood has received more than fifty-five awards, including two Governor General's Awards, the first in for The Circle Game, her first major book of poems; the second for her novel, The Handmaid's Tale, which was made into a movie. Style and statement Atwood has alternated prose writing that differs from poetry due to lack of rhyme and closeness to everyday speech and poetry throughout her career, often publishing a book of each in the same or consecutive years.

Popular and accessible Atwood is known as a very accessible writer. For More Information Cooke, Nathalie. User Contributions:. Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: Name:. E-mail: Show my email publicly.

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