Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood at a demonstration in 1988
Born November 18, 1939 (1939-11-18) (age 68)
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, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin
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

[edit] 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 the fall of 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. (Graeme Gibson had two sons, Matt and Grae, from a previous marriage.) 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 of 1913, in the last week in the life of Johnson.

[edit] Works

[edit] Novels

[edit] Poetry collections

[edit] Short fiction collections

[edit] Anthologies edited

[edit] Children's books

[edit] Non-fiction

[edit] Drawings


[edit] Reviews

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).[5]

[edit] Political Involvement

Atwood and her partner Graeme Gibson are 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 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.[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. Atwood is also a very active feminist.[citation needed]

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]

[edit] See also

Commons::Category:Margaret Atwood
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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Honor roll:Fiction authors". Award Annals (2007-11-17).
  2. ^ Holcombe, Garan (2005). "Margaret Atwood". Contemporary Writers. London: British Arts Council. Retrieved on 2008-10-22. 
  3. ^ a b c http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/atwood/atwood.htm
  4. ^ http://www.mscd.edu/~atwoodso/index_files/Page295.htm.
  5. ^ http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12414948
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ Margaret, Atwood. Anything but a Harper majority. Globe and Mail. October. 6, 2008.
  8. ^ Interview with author Margaret Atwood
  9. ^ [2]

[edit] References

  • Carrington de Papp, I. Margaret Atwood and Her Works. Toronto: EWC, 1985.
  • 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
  • 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

[edit] Awards

[edit] External links

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[edit] Interviews

v • d • e
Scotiabank Giller Prize laureates
M.G. Vassanji (1994) · Rohinton Mistry (1995) · Margaret Atwood (1996) · Mordecai Richler (1997) · Alice Munro (1998) · Bonnie Burnard (1999) · Michael Ondaatje / David Adams Richards (2000) · Richard B. Wright (2001) · Austin Clarke (2002) · M.G. Vassanji (2003) · Alice Munro (2004) · David Bergen (2005) · Vincent Lam (2006) · Elizabeth Hay (2007)
v • d • e
Man Booker Prize for Fiction
1969–1980

P. H. Newby (1969) · Bernice Rubens (1970) · V. S. Naipaul (1971) · John Berger (1972) · James Gordon Farrell (1973) · Nadine Gordimer / Stanley Middleton (1974) · Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) · David Storey (1976) · Paul Scott (1977) · Iris Murdoch (1978) · Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) · William Golding (1980)
1981–2000

Salman Rushdie (1981) · Thomas Keneally (1982) · J. M. Coetzee (1983) · Anita Brookner (1984) · Keri Hulme (1985) · Kingsley Amis (1986) · Penelope Lively (1987) · Peter Carey (1988) · Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) · A. S. Byatt (1990) · Ben Okri (1991) · Michael Ondaatje / Barry Unsworth (1992) · Roddy Doyle (1993) · James Kelman (1994) · Pat Barker (1995) · Graham Swift (1996) · Arundhati Roy (1997) · Ian McEwan (1998) · J. M. Coetzee (1999) · Margaret Atwood (2000)
2001–present

Peter Carey (2001) · Yann Martel (2002) · DBC Pierre (2003) · Alan Hollinghurst (2004) · John Banville (2005) · Kiran Desai (2006) · Anne Enright (2007) · Aravind Adiga (2008)


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
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood"
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