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Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for literature, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards.[2] A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.

Key Information

Atwood's works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and power politics.[3] Many of her poems are inspired by myths and fairy tales which interested her from a very early age.[4]

Atwood is a founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Writers' Trust of Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow of Massey College, Toronto. She is the inventor of the LongPen device and associated technologies that facilitate remote robotic writing of documents.[5][6][7][8][9][10]

Early life and education

[edit]

Atwood was born on November 18, 1939,[11] in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the second of three children[12] of Carl Edmund Atwood, an entomologist,[13] and Margaret Dorothy (née Killam), a former dietitian and nutritionist from Woodville, Nova Scotia.[14] Because of her father's research in forest entomology, Atwood spent much of her childhood in the backwoods of northern Quebec,[15] and travelling back and forth between Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto.

She did not attend school full-time until she was 12 years old. She became a voracious reader of literature, Dell pocketbook mysteries, Grimms' Fairy Tales, Canadian animal stories, and comic books. She attended Leaside High School in Leaside, Toronto, and graduated in 1957.[16] Atwood began writing plays and poems at the age of 6.[17]

As a child, she also participated in the Brownie program of Girl Guides of Canada. Atwood has written about her experiences in Girl Guides in several of her publications.[18]

Atwood realized she wanted to write professionally when she was 16.[19] In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where she published poems and articles in Acta Victoriana, the college literary journal, and participated in the sophomore theatrical tradition of The Bob Comedy Revue.[20] 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.[16]: 54 

In 1961, Atwood began graduate studies at Radcliffe College of Harvard University, with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship.[21] She obtained a master's degree (MA) from Radcliffe in 1962 and pursued doctoral studies for two years, but did not finish her dissertation, The English Metaphysical Romance.[22]

Personal life

[edit]

Atwood has a sister, Ruth Atwood, born in 1951, and a brother who is two years older, Harold Leslie Atwood.[23] She has claimed that, according to her grandmother (maiden name Webster), the 17th-century witchcraft-lynching survivor Mary Webster might have been an ancestor: "On Monday, my grandmother would say Mary was her ancestor, and on Wednesday she would say she wasn't… So take your pick."[24] Webster is the subject of Atwood's poem "Half-Hanged Mary", as well as the subject of Atwood's dedication in her novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985).[25]

Atwood married Jim Polk, an American writer, in 1968, but they divorced in 1973.[26][27] She formed a relationship with fellow novelist Graeme Gibson soon afterward and moved to a farm near Alliston, Ontario, where their daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, was born in 1976.[26]

The family returned to Toronto in 1980.[28] Atwood and Gibson were together until September 18, 2019, when Gibson died after suffering from dementia.[29] She wrote about Gibson in the poem Dearly and in an accompanying essay on grief and poetry published in The Guardian in 2020.[30] Atwood said about Gibson "He wasn't an egotist, so he wasn't threatened by anything I was doing. He said to our daughter towards the end of his life, 'Your mum would still have been a writer if she hadn't met me, but she wouldn't have had as much fun'".[31]

Although she is an accomplished writer, Atwood says that she is "a terrible speller" who writes both on a computer and by hand.[32]

Atwood maintains a summer home on Pelee Island in Lake Erie.[33]

Career

[edit]

1960s

[edit]

Atwood's first book of poetry, Double Persephone, was published as a pamphlet by John Robert Colombo's Hawkshead Press in 1961, and won the E. J. Pratt Medal.[34] While continuing to write, Atwood was a lecturer in English at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, from 1964 to 1965, Instructor in English at the Sir George Williams University in Montreal from 1967 to 1968, and taught at the University of Alberta from 1969 to 1970.[35] In 1966, The Circle Game was published, winning the Governor General's Award.[36] This collection was followed by three other small press collections of poetry: Kaleidoscopes Baroque: a poem, Cranbrook Academy of Art (1965); Talismans for Children, Cranbrook Academy of Art (1965); and Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein, Cranbrook Academy of Art (1966); as well as The Animals in That Country (1968). Atwood's first novel, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969. As a social satire of North American consumerism, many critics have often cited the novel as an early example of the feminist concerns found in many of Atwood's works.[37]

1970s

[edit]

Atwood taught at York University in Toronto from 1971 to 1972 and was a writer in residence at the University of Toronto during the 1972/1973 academic year.[35]: xxix–xxx  Atwood published six collections of poetry over the course of the decade: The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970), Procedures for Underground (1970), Power Politics (1971), You Are Happy (1974), Selected Poems 1965–1975 (1976), and Two-Headed Poems (1978). Atwood also published three novels during this time: Surfacing (1972); Lady Oracle (1976); and Life Before Man (1979), which was a finalist for the Governor General's Award.[36] Surfacing, Lady Oracle, and Life Before Man, like The Edible Woman, explore identity and social constructions of gender as they relate to topics such as nationhood and sexual politics.[38] In particular, Surfacing, along with her first non-fiction monograph, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), helped establish Atwood as an important and emerging voice in Canadian literature.[39] In 1977 Atwood published her first short story collection, Dancing Girls, which was the winner of the St. Lawrence Award for Fiction and the award of The Periodical Distributors of Canada for Short Fiction.[35]

By 1976, there was such interest in Atwood, her works, and her life that Maclean's declared her to be "Canada's most gossiped-about writer."[40]

1980s

[edit]

Atwood's literary reputation continued to rise in the 1980s with the publication of Bodily Harm (1981); The Handmaid's Tale (1985), winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award[41] and 1985 Governor General's Award[36] and finalist for the 1986 Booker Prize;[42] and Cat's Eye (1988), finalist for both the 1988 Governor General's Award[36] and the 1989 Booker Prize.[43] Despite her distaste for literary labels, Atwood has since conceded to referring to The Handmaid's Tale as a work of science fiction or, more precisely, speculative fiction.[44][45] As she has repeatedly noted, "There's a precedent in real life for everything in the book. I decided not to put anything in that somebody somewhere hadn't already done."[46]

While reviewers and critics have been tempted to read autobiographical elements of Atwood's life in her work, particularly Cat's Eye,[47][35]: xxx  in general Atwood resists the desire of critics to read too closely for an author's life in their writing.[24] Filmmaker Michael Rubbo's Margaret Atwood: Once in August (1984)[48] details the filmmaker's frustration in uncovering autobiographical evidence and inspiration in Atwood's works.[49]

During the 1980s, Atwood continued to teach, serving as the MFA Honorary Chair at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, 1985; the Berg Professor of English, New York University, 1986; Writer-in-Residence, Macquarie University, Australia, 1987; and Writer-in-Residence, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, 1989.[35]: xxix–xxx  Regarding her stints with teaching, she has noted, "Success for me meant no longer having to teach at university."[50]

1990s

[edit]

Atwood's reputation as a writer continued to grow with the publication of the novels The Robber Bride (1993), finalist for the 1994 Governor General's Award[36] and shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Award,[51] and Alias Grace (1996), winner of the 1996 Giller Prize, finalist for the 1996 Booker Prize,[52] finalist for the 1996 Governor General's Award,[36] and shortlisted for the 1997 Orange Prize for Fiction.[53] Although vastly different in context and form, both novels use female characters to question good and evil and morality through their portrayal of female villains. As Atwood noted about The Robber Bride, "I'm not making a case for evil behavior, but unless you have some women characters portrayed as evil characters, you're not playing with a full range."[54] The Robber Bride takes place in contemporary Toronto, while Alias Grace is a work of historical fiction detailing the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. Atwood had previously written the 1974 CBC made-for-TV film The Servant Girl, about the life of Grace Marks, the young servant who, along with James McDermott, was convicted of the crime.[55] Atwood continued her poetry contributions by publishing Snake Woman in 1999 for the Women's Literature journal Kalliope.[56]

2000s

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Novels

[edit]
Atwood attending a reading at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in September 2006

In 2000, Atwood published her tenth novel, The Blind Assassin, to critical acclaim, winning both the Booker Prize[57] and the Hammett Prize[58] in 2000. The Blind Assassin was also nominated for the Governor General's Award in 2000,[36] Orange Prize for Fiction, and the International Dublin Literary Award in 2002.[59] In 2001, Atwood was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.[60]

Atwood followed this success with the publication of Oryx and Crake in 2003, the first novel in a series that also includes The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013), which would collectively come to be known as the MaddAddam Trilogy. The apocalyptic vision in the MaddAddam Trilogy engages themes of genetic modification, pharmaceutical and corporate control, and man-made disaster.[61] As a work of speculative fiction, Atwood notes of the technology in Oryx and Crake, "I think, for the first time in human history, we see where we might go. We can see far enough into the future to know that we can't go on the way we've been going forever without inventing, possibly, a lot of new and different things."[62] She later cautions in the acknowledgements to MaddAddam, "Although MaddAddam is a work of fiction, it does not include any technologies or bio-beings that do not already exist, are not under construction or are not possible in theory."[63]

In 2005, Atwood published the novella The Penelopiad as part of the Canongate Myth Series. The story is a retelling of The Odyssey from the perspective of Penelope and a chorus of the twelve maids murdered at the end of the original tale. The Penelopiad was given a theatrical production in 2007.[64]

In 2016, Atwood published the novel Hag-Seed, a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, as part of Penguin Random House's Hogarth Shakespeare Series.[65]

On November 28, 2018, Atwood announced that she would publish The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, in September 2019.[66] The novel features three female narrators and takes place fifteen years after the character Offred's final scene in The Handmaid's Tale. The book was the joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize.[67]

Nonfiction

[edit]

In 2008, Atwood published Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, a collection of five lectures delivered as part of the Massey Lectures from October 12 to November 1, 2008. The book was released in anticipation of the lectures, which were also recorded and broadcast on CBC Radio One's Ideas.[68]

Chamber opera

[edit]

In March 2008, Atwood accepted a chamber opera commission. Commissioned by City Opera of Vancouver, Pauline is set in Vancouver in March 1913 during the final days of the life of Canadian writer and performer Pauline Johnson.[69] Pauline, composed by Tobin Stokes with libretto by Atwood, premiered on May 23, 2014, at Vancouver's York Theatre.[70]

Graphic fiction

[edit]

In 2016, Atwood began writing the superhero comic book series Angel Catbird, with co-creator and illustrator Johnnie Christmas. The series protagonist, scientist Strig Feleedus, is victim of an accidental mutation that leaves him with the body parts and powers of both a cat and a bird.[71] As with her other works, Atwood notes of the series, "The kind of speculative fiction about the future that I write is always based on things that are in process right now. So it's not that I imagine them, it's that I notice that people are working on them and I take it a few steps further down the road. So it doesn't come out of nowhere, it comes out of real life."[72]

Future Library project

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With her novel Scribbler Moon, Atwood is the first contributor to the Future Library project.[73] The work, completed in 2015, was ceremonially handed over to the project on May 27 of the same year.[74] The book will be held by the project until its eventual publishing in 2114. She thinks that readers will probably need a paleo-anthropologist to translate some parts of her story.[75] In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Atwood said, "There's something magical about it. It's like Sleeping Beauty. The texts are going to slumber for 100 years and then they'll wake up, come to life again. It's a fairytale length of time. She slept for 100 years."[74]

Invention of the LongPen

[edit]

In early 2004, while on the paperback tour in Denver for her novel Oryx and Crake, Atwood conceived the concept of a remote robotic writing technology, what would later be known as the LongPen, that would enable a person to remotely write in ink anywhere in the world via tablet PC and the Internet, thus allowing her to conduct her book tours without being physically present. She quickly founded a company, Unotchit Inc., to develop, produce and distribute this technology. By 2011, the company shifted its market focus into business and legal transactions and was producing a range of products, for a variety of remote writing applications, based on the LongPen technologies. In 2013, the company renamed itself to Syngrafii Inc. In 2021, it is cloud-based and offers electronic signature technology. As of May 2021, Atwood is still a director of Syngrafii Inc. and holder of various patents related to the LongPen and related technology.[5][6][7][8][9][10]

Poetry

[edit]

In November 2020 Atwood published Dearly, a collection of poems exploring absences and endings, ageing and retrospection, and gifts and renewals.[76] The central poem, Dearly, was also published in The Guardian newspaper along with an essay exploring the passing of time, grief, and how a poem belongs to the reader; this is accompanied by an audio recording of Atwood reading the poem on the newspaper's website.[30]

Recurring themes and cultural contexts

[edit]

Theory of Canadian identity

[edit]

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 somewhat outdated, but remains a standard introduction to Canadian literature in Canadian studies programs internationally.[77][78][79] Writer and academic Joseph Pivato has criticised the continued reprinting of Survival by Anansi Press as a view-narrowing disservice to students of Canadian literature.[80]

In Survival, Atwood postulates that Canadian literature, and by extension Canadian identity, is characterized by the symbol of survival.[81] 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 "victor/victim" relationship.[82] The "victor" in these scenarios may be other humans, nature, the wilderness or other external and internal factors which oppress the victim.[82] Atwood's Survival bears the influence of Northrop Frye's theory of garrison mentality; Atwood uses Frye's concept of Canada's desire to wall itself off from outside influence as a critical tool to analyze Canadian literature.[83] 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.[84] In an interview with the Scottish critic Bill Findlay in 1979, Atwood discussed the relationship of Canadian writers and writing to the 'Imperial Cultures' of America and Britain.[85]

Atwood's contribution to the theorizing of Canada is not limited to her non-fiction works. Several of her 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".[86] In such works, Atwood explicitly explores the relation of history and narrative and the processes of creating history.[87]

Among her contributions to Canadian literature, Atwood is a founding trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize,[88] as well as a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community.[89]

Feminism

[edit]

Atwood's work has been of interest to feminist literary critics, despite Atwood's unwillingness at times to apply the label 'feminist' to her works.[90] Starting with the publication of her first novel, The Edible Woman, Atwood asserted, "I don't consider it feminism; I just consider it social realism."[91]

Despite her rejection of the label at times, critics have analyzed the sexual politics, use of myth and fairytale, and gendered relationships in Atwood's work through the lens of feminism.[92] Before the 1985 publication of The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood gave an interview to feminist theorist Elizabeth Meese in which she defined feminism as a "belief in the rights of women" and averred that "if practical, hardline, anti-male feminists took over and became the government, I would resist them."[93] In 2017, she clarified her discomfort with the label feminism by stating, "I always want to know what people mean by that word [feminism]. Some people mean it quite negatively, other people mean it very positively, some people mean it in a broad sense, other people mean it in a more specific sense. Therefore, in order to answer the question, you have to ask the person what they mean."[94] Speaking to The Guardian, she said "For instance, some feminists have historically been against lipstick and letting transgender women into women's washrooms. Those are not positions I have agreed with",[95] a position she repeated to The Irish Times.[96][97] In an interview with Penguin Books, Atwood stated that the driving question throughout her writing of The Handmaid's Tale was "If you were going to shove women back into the home and deprive them of all of these gains that they thought they had made, how would you do it?", but related this question to totalitarianism, not feminism.[98]

In January 2018, Atwood penned the op-ed "Am I a Bad Feminist?" for The Globe and Mail.[99] The piece was in response to social media backlash related to Atwood's signature on a 2016 petition calling for an independent investigation into the firing of Steven Galloway, a former University of British Columbia professor accused of sexual harassment and assault by a student.[100] While feminist critics denounced Atwood for her support of Galloway, Atwood asserted that her signature was in support of due process in the legal system. She has been criticized for her comments surrounding the #MeToo movement, particularly that it is a "symptom of a broken legal system".[101]

In 2018, following a partnership between Hulu's adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale and women's rights organisation Equality Now, Atwood was honored at their 2018 Make Equality Reality Gala.[102] In her acceptance speech she said:

I am, of course, not a real activist—I'm simply a writer without a job who is frequently asked to speak about subjects that would get people with jobs fired if they themselves spoke. You, however, at Equality Now are real activists. I hope people will give Equality Now lots and lots of money, today, so they can write equal laws, enact equal laws and see that equal laws are implemented. That way, in time, all girls may be able to grow up believing that there are no avenues that are closed to them simply because they are girls.[102]

In 2019, Atwood partnered with Equality Now for the release of The Testaments.[103]

Speculative and science fiction

[edit]

Atwood has resisted the suggestion that The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake are science fiction, suggesting to The Guardian in 2003 that they are speculative fiction: "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen."[26] 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."[104] On BBC Breakfast, she explained that science fiction, as opposed to what she herself wrote, was "talking squids in outer space." The latter phrase particularly rankled advocates of science fiction and frequently recurs when her writing is discussed.[104]

In 2005, Atwood said that she did at times write social science fiction and that The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake could be designated as such. She clarified her meaning on the difference between speculative and science fiction, admitting that others used 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." She said that science fiction narratives give a writer the ability to explore themes in ways that realistic fiction cannot.[105]

Atwood further clarified her definitions of terms in 2011, in a discussion with science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin: "What Le Guin means by 'science fiction' is what I mean by 'speculative fiction', and what she means by 'fantasy' would include what I mean by 'science fiction'."[106] She added that genre borders were increasingly fluid, and that all forms of "SF" might be placed under a common umbrella.[106]

Reception

[edit]

In 2024 the Republican-dominated Utah Legislature passed a law[107] mandating the removal of books deemed objectionable from all Utah public schools. On August 2, 2024, the Utah State School Board released its first list of objectionable books. One book on this list was penned by Atwood (Oryx and Crake).[108][109]

Animal rights

[edit]

Atwood repeatedly makes observations about the relationships of humans to animals in her works.[110] A large portion of the dystopia Atwood creates in Oryx and Crake concerns the genetic modification and alteration of animals and humans, resulting in hybrids such as pigoons, rakunks, wolvogs and Crakers, raising questions on the limits and ethics of science and technology, and on what it means to be human.[111]

In Surfacing, one character remarks 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." Some 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 fiancé's experience of hunting and eviscerating a rabbit. Marian stops eating meat but then later returns to it.[112]

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.[112]

Atwood is a pescetarian. In a 2009 interview she stated that "I shouldn't use the term vegetarian because I'm allowing myself gastropods, crustaceans and the occasional fish. Nothing with fur or feathers though".[113]

Political involvement

[edit]

Atwood has indicated in an interview that she considers herself a Red Tory in what she sees as the historical sense of the term, saying that "The Tories were the ones who believed that those in power had a responsibility to the community, that money should not be the measure of all things."[114] She has also stated on Twitter that she is a monarchist.[115] In the 2008 federal election, she attended a rally for the Bloc Québécois, a Quebec pro-independence party, because of her support for their position on the arts; she said she would vote for the party if she lived in Quebec, and that the choice was between the Bloc and the Conservatives.[116] In an editorial in The Globe and Mail, she urged Canadians to vote for any party other than the Conservatives to prevent them gaining a majority.[117]

A member of the political action group The Handmaid Coalition

Atwood has strong views on environmental issues, and she and Graeme Gibson were the joint honorary presidents of the Rare Bird Club within BirdLife International. Atwood celebrated her 70th birthday at a gala dinner at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. 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."[118] Atwood has been chair of the Writers' Union of Canada and helped to found the Canadian English-speaking chapter of PEN International, a group originally started to free politically imprisoned writers.[119] She held the position of PEN Canada president in the mid 1980s[120] and was the 2017 recipient of the PEN Center USA's Lifetime Achievement Award.[121] Despite calls for a boycott by Gazan students, Atwood visited Israel and 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."[122]

In her dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985), all the developments take place near Boston in the United States, now known as Gilead, while Canada is portrayed as the only hope for an escape. To some this reflects her status of being "in the vanguard of Canadian anti-Americanism of the 1960s and 1970s".[123] Critics have seen the mistreated Handmaid as Canada.[124] During the debate in 1987 over a free-trade agreement between Canada and the United States, Atwood spoke out against the deal and wrote an essay opposing it.[125] She said that the 2016 United States presidential election led to an increase in sales of The Handmaid's Tale.[126] Amazon reported that The Handmaid's Tale was the most-read book of 2017.[127] The Handmaid's Tale sequel, The Testaments, also saw a rapid increase of sales immediately following the 2024 United States presidential election, with The Handmaid's Tale reaching third in Amazon's bestseller's list. Following this election, Atwood wrote on X, "Despair is not an option. It helps no one."[128][129]

TV cameos

[edit]

In 2024, Atwood had a cameo in a season 17 episode of Murdoch Mysteries as Lorin Quinelle, an amateur ornithologist.[130]

Activism

[edit]

In 2018, Atwood signed an appeal of the American PEN Center in defense of Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov, a political prisoner in Russia.[131]

In July 2020, Atwood was one of the 153 signers of the "Harper's Letter" (also known as "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate") that expressed concern that "the free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted."[132]

On February 24, 2022, Atwood briefly covered the war in Ukraine at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and published a link to the state aid fund on Twitter.[133][134] She continues to publish information about the war in Ukraine on the social network.[135]

In 2024, Atwood worked with Climate Words, a nonprofit that is dedicated to bridging gaps in climate communication and breaking down barriers to meaningful dialogue about climate justice, on the meaning behind the term circumpollutionarity. Atwood refers to circumpollutionarity as the pollution of circumpolar lands and waters.[136]

Adaptations

[edit]

Atwood's novel Surfacing (1972) was adapted into a 1981 film of the same name written by Bernard Gordon and directed by Claude Jutra.[137] It received poor reviews; one reviewer wrote that it made "little attempt to find cinematic equivalents for the admittedly difficult subjective and poetic dimensions of the novel."[138]

Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985) has been adapted several times. A 1990 film, directed by Volker Schlöndorff, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, received mixed reviews.[139][140] A musical adaptation resulted in the 2000 opera, written by Poul Ruders, with a libretto by Paul Bentley. It premiered at the Royal Danish Opera in 2000, and was staged in 2003 at London's English National Opera and the Minnesota Opera.[141] Boston Lyric Opera mounted a production in May 2019, described by The New York Times as "a triumph".[142] A television series by Bruce Miller began airing on the streaming service Hulu in 2017.[143] The first season of the show earned eight Emmys in 2017, including Outstanding Drama Series. Season two premiered on April 25, 2018, and it was announced on May 2, 2018, that Hulu had renewed the series for a third season.[144] Atwood appears in a cameo in the first episode as one of the Aunts at the Red Center.[145] In 2019, a graphic novel (ISBN 9780224101936) based on the book and with the same title was published by Renée Nault.

In 2003, six of Atwood's short stories were adapted by Shaftesbury Films for the anthology television series The Atwood Stories.[146]

Atwood's 2008 Massey Lectures were adapted into the documentary Payback (2012), by director Jennifer Baichwal.[147] Commentary by Atwood and others such as economist Raj Patel, ecologist William Reese, and religious scholar Karen Armstrong, are woven into various stories that explore the concepts of debt and payback, including an Armenian blood feud, agricultural working conditions, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[148]

The novel Alias Grace (1996) was adapted into a six-part 2017 miniseries directed by Mary Harron and adapted by Sarah Polley. It premiered on CBC on September 25, 2017, and the full series was released on Netflix on November 3, 2017.[149][150][151] Atwood makes a cameo in the fourth episode of the series as a disapproving churchgoer.[152]

In the Wake of the Flood (released in October 2010), a documentary film by the Canadian director Ron Mann, followed Atwood on the unusual book tour for her novel The Year of the Flood (2009). 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 film vérité".[153]

Atwood's children's book Wandering Wenda and Widow Wallop's Wunderground Washery (2011) was adapted into the children's television series The Wide World of Wandering Wenda, broadcast on CBC beginning in the spring of 2017.[154] Aimed at early readers, the animated series follows Wenda and her friends as they navigate different adventures using words, sounds, and language.[154]

Director Darren Aronofsky had been slated to direct an adaptation of the MaddAddam trilogy for HBO, but it was revealed in October 2016 that HBO had dropped the plan from its schedule. In January 2018, it was announced that Paramount Television and Anonymous Content had bought the rights to the trilogy and would be producing it without Aronofsky.[155]

Awards and honours

[edit]

Atwood holds numerous honorary degrees from various institutions, including The Sorbonne, NUI Galway as well as Oxford and Cambridge universities.[156]

Awards

Atwood also was nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series as The Handmaid's Tale's producer in 2018, 2020, and 2021.

Honorary degrees

Works

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Summary Bibliography[236]

See also

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References

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Further reading

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[edit]
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Margaret Atwood

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![Atwood in 2022](./assets/Margaret_Atwood_3x4cropped3x4_cropped Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born 18 November 1939) is a Canadian , , essayist, and literary critic whose work spans , historical narratives, and environmental themes. Atwood has authored over 50 books, including the dystopian novel (1985), which critiques through a theocratic regime's subjugation of women, and its sequel (2019); other major works encompass (2000), (1996), and the trilogy. She began publishing poetry in the , earning early recognition with collections like The Circle Game (1966), and has since explored themes of power, identity, and ecology across genres. Her literary output has been translated into more than 45 languages and adapted for film, television, and stage, amplifying her global influence. Atwood's achievements include two Booker Prizes—for The Blind Assassin in 2000 and co-winning for The Testaments in 2019—along with multiple , the Companion of the (1981), and the (2017). She has held leadership roles such as president of the Writers' Union of (1981–1982) and the PEN International Canadian Centre (1984–1986), advocating for . Despite her prominence in literary circles often aligned with progressive causes, Atwood has faced criticism from activist factions for prioritizing in sexual misconduct cases, such as her defense of an regarding the University of British Columbia's handling of allegations against Steven Galloway, and for opposing legislative measures perceived as threats to free expression, including 's Bill C-63, which she termed "Orwellian" for its potential to criminalize thought-like offenses. These positions underscore her commitment to , even when challenging prevailing orthodoxies in academia and media institutions prone to ideological conformity.

Early Life and Education

Childhood and Family Origins

Margaret Atwood was born on November 18, 1939, in , , , the second of three children born to Carl Edmund Atwood, a forest entomologist specializing in insect research, and Margaret Dorothy Killam, a and . Her father conducted fieldwork in remote northern regions, leading the family to spend extended periods backpacking and living in rudimentary camps in the and wilderness during Atwood's early years, often without access to , running , or modern media like television and radio. This nomadic lifestyle, driven by her father's professional demands, exposed Atwood to isolated natural environments from infancy, fostering self-reliance and a deep familiarity with forests and that later influenced her writing. Her mother, born in 1909 in Nova Scotia's to a family of modest means, had trained in dietetics before and managed household amid the family's transient existence; she and Carl wed in 1935 after meeting during her studies. Atwood's older brother, Harold, pursued a in , while a younger sister, Ruth, completed the siblings; the family's annual migrations between urban or and bush outposts shaped a childhood marked by physical adventure over formal structure, with schooling delayed until age seven due to remoteness. By 1945, the Atwoods relocated to Sault Ste. Marie, and later to in 1952, transitioning toward more settled urban life, though echoes of wilderness isolation persisted in Atwood's formative experiences.

Formal Education and Early Influences

Atwood's formal schooling began irregularly due to her family's peripatetic lifestyle in northern and , where her father conducted entomological fieldwork; she was primarily educated at home by her mother until age twelve, when the family settled in and she entered conventional classes. This period of self-directed learning emphasized reading, including fairy tales and myths, which fostered her early fascination with narrative archetypes and speculative storytelling—she began composing poems and stories around age six. Her exposure to scientific observation through her father's profession also cultivated a respect for empirical detail and systems that would permeate her later work. She completed her undergraduate studies at Victoria College, , earning a in English in 1961. Influenced by the mythopoetic criticism of professor , who later assisted in securing her graduate funding, Atwood developed an analytical framework for literature rooted in universal symbols and structures rather than strictly historicist approaches. Following graduation, she enrolled at (affiliated with ), receiving a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and completing a in English in 1962. Atwood continued toward a PhD at Harvard from 1962–1963 and 1965–1967, researching nineteenth-century English Gothic fantasy novels, but abandoned the program without finishing her dissertation, citing the limitations of academic specialization amid her growing commitment to . This decision reflected a prioritization of practical authorship over institutional credentials, aligning with her self-taught origins and aversion to overly prescriptive scholarly norms. Early academic encounters, particularly Frye's emphasis on mythic patterns, reinforced her inclination toward interrogating power dynamics and human resilience through reimagined , evident in her initial poetry collections.

Personal Life

Relationships and Family Dynamics

Atwood married American writer Jim Polk in 1968 after meeting him during her graduate studies at ; the couple divorced in 1973 without having children. Following the divorce, she began a relationship with Canadian novelist and conservationist in 1973, which endured for over four decades until Gibson's death from a hemorrhagic on September 18, 2019, at age 85. Atwood and Gibson co-founded the Writers' Trust of in 1976 and shared interests including ornithology, which influenced Gibson's writings on birds. The couple had one daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, born in May 1976; they briefly pursued a rural lifestyle before relocating to Toronto in 1980 to provide stability for the child. Gibson brought two sons from a prior relationship—Matthew and Grae—into the family, whom Atwood has described as stepsons. In Gibson's final years, marked by dementia, Atwood assumed caregiving responsibilities while continuing her writing career. Their partnership exemplified mutual encouragement among Canadian authors, with both maintaining independent careers amid shared domestic life. Prior to her marriage to Polk, Atwood had two engagements that ended without matrimony.

Later Personal Challenges and Residences

In her later years, Atwood has primarily resided in neighbourhood, owning a home on Admiral Road amid leafy Edwardian-era streets. The family settled permanently in by 1980 after earlier temporary stays in cities including , , , and abroad in and . In 2017, she sold a triplex property in Toronto's Trinity Bellwoods area, which featured separate units including an owner's suite. A significant personal challenge emerged in 2017 when her longtime partner, Graeme Gibson, was diagnosed with vascular dementia; the couple, together since the early 1970s, had shared a home in Toronto. Gibson, a novelist and conservationist, died on September 18, 2019, at age 85, prompting Atwood to describe the loss as devastating yet aligned with his preference for a swift end over prolonged decline. She addressed this grief in subsequent works, including poems in Dearly (2020) dedicated to Gibson and stories in Old Babes in the Wood (2023) exploring themes of absence, memory, and family bereavement. Atwood has also faced her own health setbacks, reporting in 2023 a history of cardiac irregularities beginning with an extra-systole detected at age twelve, escalating to full-blown requiring treatment. At 85, these age-related issues, compounded by losses including Gibson's, have influenced reflections on mortality and resilience in her writing, though she continues public engagements and literary output from her base.

Writing Career

Initial Publications and Poetry (1960s-1970s)

Atwood's literary career began with , as her first collection, Double Persephone, was published in by Hawkshead Press in a limited edition of 200 copies, handset and featuring linoblock prints on the cover. This debut, released when she was 22, established her early engagement with mythological and dualistic imagery. In 1966, The Circle Game appeared through House of Anansi Press, following a limited art-press edition in 1964; the collection won the Governor General's Award for , recognizing its exploration of perception, entrapment, and relational dynamics. This accolade marked her emergence as a significant Canadian voice, with the title poem later anthologized widely. Subsequent poetry volumes included in That Country in 1968, Procedures for Underground in 1970, and The Journals of in 1970, the latter adapting historical pioneer narratives into verse sequences that critiqued colonial legacies. These works, drawn from in her 1976 Selected Poems 1965-1975, often employed stark, ironic tones to examine power structures and environmental disconnection. Transitioning to prose, Atwood published her debut novel, , in 1969 with McClelland & Stewart, a satirical examination of consumer culture and feminine identity through protagonist Marian MacAlpin's psychological unraveling. The novel, written earlier but revised post-The Circle Game's success, reflected her growing interest in narrative forms beyond . In 1972, Surfacing followed, also from McClelland & Stewart, depicting a woman's return to a wilderness site amid personal and national identity crises, solidifying her reputation for introspective, psychologically layered fiction. During this decade, her output totaled over a dozen chapbooks and broadsides alongside these novels, with themes recurring around , , and societal myths.

Breakthrough Novels and Expanding Genres (1980s-1990s)

Margaret Atwood achieved international prominence with The Handmaid's Tale, published in 1985, a dystopian depicting a near-future theocratic regime in the Republic of Gilead where fertile women are subjugated as reproductive vessels amid environmental collapse and declining birth rates. The work drew from historical precedents of religious extremism and , with Atwood emphasizing that every element was grounded in real events rather than invention. It garnered the Governor General's Award in 1986 and the inaugural for science fiction in 1987, marking her expansion into beyond earlier realist and poetic works. Initial critical reception praised its cautionary exploration of patriarchal backlash and nuclear-era anxieties, though some reviewers noted its stark portrayal of feminist concerns as potentially polarizing. In 1988, Atwood released Cat's Eye, a semi-autobiographical novel tracing artist Elaine Risley's reflections on childhood and female rivalries in mid-20th-century , delving into themes of memory, art, and interpersonal cruelty among women. The narrative shifted toward introspective realism, contrasting the speculative urgency of , and highlighted Atwood's versatility in probing psychological depths without overt . This period solidified her reputation for multifaceted character studies, earning nominations and acclaim for its unflinching depiction of often glossed over in . The 1990s saw further genre experimentation with The Robber Bride in 1993, which reimagines the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "The Robber Bridegroom" through the stories of three women victimized by the enigmatic Zenia, blending myth, postmodern irony, and explorations of betrayal and revenge. The novel received the Canadian Authors Association's Novel of the Year Award, underscoring Atwood's integration of folklore into modern feminist inquiries while critiquing simplistic victim narratives. Culminating the decade, Alias Grace (1996), inspired by the 1843 murders involving Canadian servant Grace Marks, adopts a historical fiction framework interwoven with psychological ambiguity and Victorian-era hypnosis debates, shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This work expanded Atwood's oeuvre into meticulous historical reconstruction, emphasizing evidentiary uncertainty and the unreliability of testimony over moral absolutes, thus broadening her speculative lens to encompass real unsolved crimes. These novels collectively propelled Atwood from Canadian literary circles to global stature, diversifying her output across , realism, myth-infused , and historical , with sales exceeding millions and adaptations foreshadowing her enduring influence. Awards and translations into over 40 languages during this era reflected a critical pivot toward recognizing her as a genre-boundary pusher, though some analyses attribute heightened acclaim to alignment with prevailing cultural discourses on power imbalances.

Contemporary Output and Innovations (2000s-2025)

In the 2000s, Atwood expanded her with the trilogy, beginning with in 2003, which depicts a post-apocalyptic world resulting from unchecked and corporate greed leading to a engineered plague. The sequel, (2009), introduces a parallel narrative from the perspective of survivors in a cult-like eco-community, emphasizing causal chains from and social fragmentation. Concluding with (2013), the trilogy extrapolates real-world trends in and resource scarcity into plausible collapse scenarios, avoiding implausible inventions in favor of extensions of existing technologies. Atwood's novels in the 2010s continued dystopian explorations, including The Heart Goes Last (2015), which examines voluntary in a privatized -town amid economic despair. Hag-Seed (2016), part of the series, reimagines as a prison theater production confronting revenge and redemption, blending classical adaptation with contemporary penal system critiques. The Testaments (2019), a sequel to , details the internal decay of through multiple narrators, winning the jointly and highlighting institutional fragility from authoritarian overreach. Innovations in format marked this period, as Atwood ventured into graphic novels with Angel Catbird (2016, volumes 1-3 in 2017), a tale fusing human, cat, and owl to satirize identity and environmental threats, and War Bears (2018, volumes 1-3), a parody critiquing through teddy bear soldiers. These works represent her first forays into visual narrative, leveraging illustration to amplify speculative warnings on and . Poetry and non-fiction output persisted, with The Door (2007) reflecting on mortality and creativity, and Dearly (2020) addressing loss, including her partner Graeme Gibson's death in 2019. Non-fiction like In Other Worlds (2011) dissects science fiction's boundaries, distinguishing her "speculative fiction" as grounded in historical precedents rather than extraterrestrial fantasies. Recent collections include Stone Mattress (2014) and Old Babes in the Wood (2023) short stories, probing aging and grief, alongside Burning Questions (2022) essays spanning societal upheavals from 2004 to 2021. A forthcoming memoir, Book of Lives (2025), continues autobiographical introspection.

Core Themes and Philosophical Underpinnings

Explorations of Canadian Identity

In her 1972 monograph Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Atwood identifies survival amid adversarial nature and historical marginalization as the predominant motif in Canadian writing, linking it to the nation's geography, climate, and status as a former colony overshadowed by British and American powers. She structures this analysis around a "victim" archetype, outlining four progressive positions: denial of victimhood, passive acceptance, defiant rejection without resolution, and the ideal of becoming a "creative non-victim" who transforms adversity into agency. This framework, drawn from examinations of authors like Susanna Moodie and Robertson Davies, frames Canadian identity as inherently provisional and defensive, shaped by external threats rather than innate assertiveness, though Atwood later clarified in interviews that the book was partly provocative rather than exhaustive. Atwood's fiction operationalizes these ideas, particularly in Surfacing (1972), where an unnamed protagonist returns to a wilderness island to confront personal and national disorientation amid American cultural encroachment and environmental despoliation. The narrative intertwines individual psychological fragmentation—marked by repressed trauma and illusory perceptions—with broader Canadian motifs of passivity, feminized vulnerability, and identity erosion under foreign influence, culminating in a ritualistic reclamation that echoes the "creative non-victim" stance. Similar undertones appear in (1969), which critiques consumerist assimilation eroding authentic selfhood, paralleling Atwood's view of as a susceptible to imperial absorption without robust cultural defenses. Critics, including literary scholars, have faulted Atwood's victim-centric lens for promoting a reductive nationalism that overlooks pre-20th-century diversity, indigenous perspectives, and evidence of resilience in earlier texts, potentially reinforcing a self-limiting mindset amid Canada's post-Confederation (1867) economic and political maturation. Atwood's explorations evolved in later works like Alias Grace (1996), a historical novel based on the 1843 Toronto murders and trial of servant Grace Marks, which probes 19th-century colonial hierarchies and unreliable narration to question fixed identities, reflecting a shift toward hybridity over pure victimhood while retaining scrutiny of power imbalances rooted in Canada's settler history. These themes underscore Atwood's causal emphasis on environmental determinism and historical contingency in forging collective character, though empirical analyses of Canadian GDP growth (averaging 3.2% annually from 1960-2020) and cultural exports suggest a divergence from perpetual victim status.

Feminism: Principles, Applications, and Limitations

Margaret Atwood's feminist principles emphasize the full humanity of women, rejecting portrayals of them as inherently virtuous or perpetual victims. She states, "My fundamental position is that women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones. They’re not angels, incapable of ." Atwood insists that women possess agency and moral responsibility, akin to men, and that securing civil and for women necessitates such rights for all individuals, without gender-based exemptions. This humanist stance aligns her with moderate or , prioritizing equality and individual freedoms over radical or collective guilt attribution. In her literary applications, Atwood employs these principles to explore power dynamics and female complicity in , as in (1985), where the dystopian regime of subjugates women through reproductive control, yet women like the Aunts and Wives actively perpetuate the system via indoctrination and enforcement. The novel critiques disunity among women—exacerbated by competitive castes—as a vulnerability exploited by patriarchal structures, drawing from historical theocracies like Puritan rather than endorsing a unidirectional male narrative. Beyond fiction, Atwood applies her views in , supporting while advocating for procedural fairness, such as in her 2016 endorsement of an demanding accountability in the University of British Columbia's handling of allegations against Steven Galloway. Atwood identifies limitations in feminism when it devolves into ideological rigidity or overlooks evidentiary standards, as evidenced by her criticism of "#MeToo" as a symptom of a flawed legal system rather than an unassailable moral crusade. This position drew accusations of being a "Bad Feminist" from those prioritizing belief in accusers over , prompting her retort that such "Good Feminists" undermine the movement by appearing unfair and predisposed. In her 2023 satirical story "Siren," published in the anthology Furies, Atwood lampoons contemporary 's tendencies toward factionalism, language policing, and fixation on peripheral debates—like inclusivity for mythical zombies—while neglecting existential threats, illustrating how internal divisions can render the movement ineffective. She warns against literalist interpretations of literature that conflate fiction with endorsement, as seen in backlash to stories challenging gender norms, underscoring 's risk of stifling dissent and nuance.

Dystopian Speculation and Causal Warnings

Margaret Atwood employs dystopian speculation in her fiction to extrapolate causal chains from observable trends, historical precedents, and human behaviors, positing warnings about how incremental erosions in freedoms, environmental stability, and ethical restraints could precipitate societal breakdown. In The Handmaid's Tale (1985), the narrative depicts the Republic of Gilead emerging from a fertility collapse triggered by pollution-induced sterility and sexually transmitted diseases, which Atwood links causally to prior environmental degradation and social complacency, enabling a fundamentalist coup that suspends the U.S. Constitution and enforces compulsory reproduction among subjugated women. Atwood has emphasized that the regime's mechanisms—such as ritualized rapes, surveillance states, and puritanical dress codes—derive from documented historical realities, including 17th-century Puritan theocracies in New England, Nazi eugenics policies, and Romania's Decree 770 under Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1966, which mandated births to counter demographic decline and resulted in over 10,000 maternal deaths from illegal abortions by 1989. This causal realism underscores her contention that totalitarianism arises not from fantastical inventions but from exploited vulnerabilities like demographic crises and eroded civil liberties, as evidenced by the novel's opening sequence of staged terrorist attacks mirroring real tactics used in authoritarian seizures. Extending these speculations, Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy, beginning with (2003), warns of biotechnology's unchecked proliferation leading to catastrophe, where corporate —driven by profit motives and lax —produces hybrid and designer viruses, culminating in a bioengineered that wipes out humanity by 2025 in the story's timeline. The causal pathway traces from industrial pollution exacerbating genetic mutations and loss to scientists like Crake deploying a fatal "hot bioform" via a happiness pill, illustrating how ecological overshoot, with real-world parallels in declines (e.g., a 68% average drop in wildlife populations from 1970 to 2016 per WWF data), intersects with hubristic innovation to render human dominance untenable. Atwood has described these scenarios as plausible extrapolations, noting in interviews that advances like since 2012 amplify risks of accidental or intentional releases, akin to lab-origin hypotheses for , without invoking impossible technologies. Across her oeuvre, Atwood's dystopias caution against conflating speculation with inevitability, insisting on agency in averting causal traps; for instance, she has argued that critiques any ideology—religious or secular—that prioritizes control over individual rights, drawing from 20th-century examples like Stalinist purges or Maoist campaigns where state ideology suppressed dissent, leading to millions of deaths. In (2019), a sequel, she extends warnings to intergenerational resilience amid ongoing decay, positing that covert resistance and external pressures can fracture even entrenched tyrannies, grounded in historical reversals like the Soviet Union's 1991 dissolution after 74 years of rule. These works collectively highlight causal realism: societies falter through compounded failures in , , and moral boundaries, yet retain potential for course correction if trends are confronted empirically rather than ideologically.

Political Involvement and Activism

Environmentalism and Animal Welfare Positions

Margaret Atwood has expressed longstanding concerns about , framing as "the everything change" to highlight its systemic impacts on ecosystems, economies, and societies beyond mere weather patterns. In a 2014 interview, she elaborated that this encompasses widespread disruptions, stating, "We think climate and we think, more clouds and more rainstorms... but it's a change of everything." Her , including the MaddAddam trilogy published between 2003 and 2013, depicts environmental collapse driven by human hubris, such as and resource overuse, as causal precursors to societal breakdown. Atwood has engaged in environmental advocacy through political affiliation and public statements. She has been a member of the and a supporter of its leader , as noted in her own accounts and party alignments. In June 2018, at a climate conference, she endorsed a ban on single-use plastics, warning, "If the ocean dies, so do we." She has also voiced support for Canadian indigenous-led movements like and contributed to environmental charities focused on conservation. In May 2018, speaking at the , Atwood predicted that climate-induced scarcities would exacerbate gender inequalities, with women facing heightened risks of repression, famine, and violence in dystopian-like conditions. On a personal level, Atwood implements practical measures to reduce her household's , including sealing drafts, using programmable thermostats, avoiding air conditioning, and opting for infrared heating over fossil fuel-dependent systems. She prefers initiatives beyond mere tree-planting, such as investments in . Regarding , Atwood has advocated for reforms to industrial practices, calling in a 2022 podcast interview with for bans on factory farming due to its cruelty and unsustainability. She leverages her presence, including , to promote fundraising and awareness, linking to campaigns against exploitation. While her early novel (1969) explores between women and edible animals through the protagonist's rejection of meat, Atwood herself maintains a vegetarian diet but consumes dairy and eggs, rejecting stricter as an impractical response to environmental pressures. Her positions emphasize relational ethics between humans and animals, informed by her late partner Graeme Gibson's work, rather than absolute rights frameworks.

Advocacy on Human Rights and Free Expression

Margaret Atwood has been a longstanding advocate for , particularly through her involvement with organizations defending writers and dissidents against authoritarian regimes. She served as the first president of PEN Canada, founded in 1984, where she focused on protecting freedom of expression for persecuted authors worldwide. In recognition of her efforts, she received the PEN Pinter Prize in 2016, awarded for her commitment to challenging and promoting literary freedom. Atwood's work with PEN extended to international congresses, including a 2025 address at PEN International's 91st Congress in , where she emphasized the global threats to writers from and exile. Her engagement with dates back to the , influencing her poetry on and political , such as in the 1978 collection Two-Headed Poems, drawn from reports on state-sanctioned . Atwood delivered a keynote address to in the late , advocating non-violent strategies like publicity and to aid victims of oppressive states. She has continued this advocacy, including a 2024 conversation with laureate during her temporary release from Iranian imprisonment, highlighting the risks faced by under theocratic rule. Atwood has consistently opposed censorship, arguing in 2022 that book bans in democratic societies mark a shift from historical totalitarian practices, stating, "We are entering a new era of book banning and censorship – not in totalitarian and authoritarian dictatorships alone." Responding to bans on The Handmaid's Tale in U.S. schools and Canadian libraries, she noted in 2024 that such measures fail to suppress ideas, as banned works "have a way of going underground." In September 2025, she released a satirical short story critiquing Alberta's school library restrictions targeting books on LGBTQ+ themes, underscoring her view that censorship undermines intellectual freedom. She received the 2025 British Book Award for Freedom to Publish, co-presented with Index on Censorship, for her defense of publishing rights amid rising threats to words and ideas. Atwood has also addressed broader free expression issues, including government silencing of scientists and the spread of , as in a where she warned against restricting to preserve empirical inquiry. In accepting the Eleanor Roosevelt Bravery in Letters Lifetime Achievement Award on October 15, 2025, she affirmed her "human rights generation" roots, defending her positions despite personal attacks and cancellations. Her advocacy extends to under repressive systems, as seen in her support for Equality Now, framing her literary warnings as calls against injustice faced by women globally.

Critiques of Atwood's Political Selectivity

Critics have accused Margaret Atwood of exhibiting political selectivity by issuing more frequent and pointed condemnations of conservative leaders and policies compared to those on the left. During Stephen Harper's tenure as Canadian from 2006 to 2015, Atwood repeatedly targeted his government, including a 2015 satirical column mocking Harper's hairstyle in the context of election rhetoric and accusations of stifling media freedom through regulatory approaches. She also decried Harper's administration for censoring scientific communication, likening it to dystopian controls on information. In contrast, Atwood's public rebukes of Justin Trudeau's Liberal government, in power since 2015, have been narrower, primarily focusing on specific measures like Bill C-63 in 2024, which she labeled "" for its potential to expand state oversight of online speech. This disparity has led observers to question whether her prioritizes ideological alignment over consistent application of principles like opposition to authoritarian overreach. Atwood's engagements with leftist regimes have drawn particular scrutiny for apparent reticence. In multiple visits to Cuba, including during the 2017 Havana Book Fair, she promoted officially sanctioned authors such as and Nancy Morejón while omitting dissident writers like , who faced exile and under the Castro regime's single-party rule. Despite her advocacy for free expression—evidenced by awards like the PEN Pinter Prize—and her novels' depictions of totalitarian and suppression, Atwood refrained from public commentary on Cuba's documented practices, including over 2,000 arbitrary arrests in the preceding months and state control of media. Critics argue this reflects a selective blindness to leftist , contrasting with her readiness to invoke dystopian parallels against right-leaning figures like . The political deployment of (1985) exemplifies another facet of alleged selectivity. While Atwood drew from diverse sources, including communist under Nicolae Ceaușescu's —which criminalized and imposed fertility quotas—the novel's imagery of coerced reproduction and theocratic control has been predominantly marshaled in critiques of . Protests featuring handmaid costumes have targeted conservative policies on and gender roles, such as those associated with Trump-era America or Republican platforms, but rarely leftist historical abuses like forced sterilizations in under or ongoing reproductive restrictions in . Commentators contend this one-sided application undermines the work's universal caution against power abuses, aligning it more with contemporary progressive narratives than balanced causal analysis of authoritarian precursors across ideologies. Atwood has countered such charges by emphasizing her critiques of censorship from both political flanks, as in her 2024 remarks on free expression threats under Trump and Canadian provincial policies. Nonetheless, detractors maintain that the evidentiary pattern—measured by volume and intensity of statements—reveals a favoring of right-leaning threats, potentially influenced by institutional alignments in literary and media circles. This meta-critique underscores broader debates on , where outlets amplifying Atwood's views often share ideological leanings that may amplify selective emphases while downplaying counterexamples.

Major Controversies

Stances on #MeToo and Procedural Justice

In November , Atwood co-signed an with over 100 Canadian writers, including , decrying the lack of in the dismissal of Steven Galloway, the chair of the University of British Columbia's program, following anonymous allegations that led to his resignation. The letter criticized UBC's investigative as opaque and potentially prejudicial, urging transparency and adherence to principles of fairness rather than presuming guilt based on unverified claims. On January 13, 2018, Atwood published an in titled "Am I a Bad Feminist?", directly addressing the case and broader #MeToo dynamics. In it, she argued that #MeToo represented a symptom of a dysfunctional legal system overburdened by unreported cases, but warned against its potential to foster "vigilante " through tribunals that bypass evidentiary standards and procedural safeguards. Atwood emphasized that her advocacy for stemmed from a commitment to for all, asserting that women, like men, possess the full spectrum of behaviors—including deceptive or malicious ones—and that abandoning innocence until proven guilty undermines civilizational norms. She explicitly rejected portraying women as inherently victimized or incapable of wrongdoing, positioning this view as consistent with principled rather than opposition to for sexual offenses. The provoked immediate backlash from portions of feminist and literary communities, with users labeling Atwood a "rape-enabling " and accusing her of undermining survivors by prioritizing accused men's rights. Critics, including some in academic and media outlets, framed her stance as siding with power imbalances, though Atwood countered that such reactions exemplified the very intolerance for dissent she critiqued, likening it to authoritarian overreach. Subsequent developments in the matter, including the primary complainant's 2018 admission of fabricating assault claims against others and 's successful against her, lent empirical weight to Atwood's procedural concerns, as UBC's initial handling was later deemed flawed by external reviews. Atwood has maintained that robust —encompassing transparent investigations, access to evidence, and appeal rights—serves truth-seeking by distinguishing credible allegations from false or exaggerated ones, thereby protecting both victims and the innocent without eroding legal presumptions. This position aligns with her broader defense of evidentiary rigor over narrative-driven judgments, even amid #MeToo's cultural momentum, which she views as a corrective force only insofar as it interfaces with accountable institutions rather than supplanting them.

Engagements with Gender Ideology Debates

In October 2021, Atwood shared a Toronto Star column by Rosie DiManno critiquing the use of gender-neutral language that she argued erodes the specificity of the term "woman," prompting accusations of amplifying trans-exclusionary rhetoric. Atwood responded to the backlash by clarifying that her intent was not to endorse trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF), stating she has long supported transgender rights and that critics misread her reference to "the other side" as feminists who viewed her trans support as a betrayal of biological women. She has repeatedly affirmed the existence of transgender people, distinguished between biological sex and gender identity, and rejected the TERF label, emphasizing her observer role in cultural debates rather than ideological allegiance. Atwood's engagements reflect a tension between advocating for women's sex-based protections—rooted in her dystopian explorations of female subjugation—and endorsing inclusion without subsuming biological distinctions. In a February 2022 Guardian interview, she addressed the debates, expressing caution about linguistic shifts that prioritize feelings over empirical categories, while critiquing both radical exclusion of trans individuals and the suppression of open discussion. That same month, she publicly rebuked gender-critical journalist , accusing such feminists of an unhealthy obsession with issues at the expense of broader concerns. Her stance aligns with prior affirmations of trans , including opposition to viewing advocacy as inherently antithetical to , though she has faced criticism from trans advocates for perceived passive endorsement of sex-realist arguments. By November 2024, Atwood described experiencing attacks from both sides of the gender spectrum—trans-inclusive activists and gender-critical feminists—highlighting her position as a target for perceived inconsistencies in prioritizing women's historical oppression without fully aligning with either camp. In a March 2023 interview, she reiterated her focus on amid evolving gender discussions, drawing parallels to the patriarchal controls depicted in while avoiding prescriptive . This nuanced approach, informed by her long-standing feminist principles, underscores a commitment to of power dynamics over dogmatic positions, though sources critiquing her from trans perspectives often frame such nuance as insufficient solidarity.

Responses to Censorship and Book Bans

Margaret Atwood has voiced strong opposition to book bans, framing them as ineffective and counterproductive to . In a March 2022 article for , she described the phenomenon as entering "a new era of book banning and —not in totalitarian and authoritarian dictatorships alone, as was once the case, but in democratic countries as well." She argued that such actions historically fail to eradicate ideas, often driving them underground instead. Atwood's own novel The Handmaid's Tale has been frequently targeted for removal from school libraries and curricula, particularly in U.S. states including , , and , due to its explicit depictions of , , and themes of . In September 2024, for instance, 59 titles including her work were pulled from all school libraries in a Florida district. Atwood responded by emphasizing the irony, noting in a KCUR that bans inadvertently amplify a book's reach: "You ban a and it has a way of going underground," adding that it persists through word-of-mouth and underground circulation despite official removal. In August 2025, following the removal of from school libraries in , —prompted by provincial guidelines on sexual content—Atwood published a satirical short story on her newsletter. Titled as a work "suitable for 17-year-olds," the piece mocked the restrictions by exaggerating compliant, sanitized narratives while questioning the ban's rationale, such as discomfort with the book's portrayal of a theological or non-erotic sex scenes. She critiqued the move as part of broader autocratic tendencies to control artists and educators, stating that "one of the harbingers of autocratic takeovers is an attempt to control writers and artists." To symbolize resistance, Atwood participated in Penguin Random House's 2022 production of a fireproof edition of , designed to withstand literal burning—a nod to historical censorship tactics. During a promotional event, she unsuccessfully attempted to ignite a copy, underscoring that modern suppression efforts echo past regimes like and Salazar's Portugal, where the book was once fully banned. At an October 14, 2025, award ceremony in , Atwood likened book bans to a "power grab," urging audiences to "stand behind librarians" as defenders of access against such overreach. Her critiques consistently prioritize unrestricted literary access, even amid debates over age-appropriateness in educational settings.

Critical Reception and Intellectual Impact

Accolades in Literary Circles

Margaret Atwood has garnered significant recognition from literary organizations for her contributions to , , and speculative literature, including multiple prestigious international prizes. Her novel (2000) won the , awarded by the Booker Prize Foundation for the best novel in English. In 2019, shared the with Bernardine Evaristo's , selected by a panel of judges for its narrative innovation and thematic depth. These victories marked her as one of few authors to win the prize twice, underscoring her sustained influence in circles. Domestically in Canada, Atwood received the Giller Prize for Alias Grace (1996), administered by the Scotiabank Giller Foundation to honor excellence in English-language fiction. She also secured the Governor General's Literary Award twice: first for poetry with The Circle Game (1966), and later for fiction with The Handmaid's Tale (1985), both conferred by the Canada Council for the Arts to recognize outstanding Canadian literary works. For speculative elements in her MaddAddam trilogy, Oryx and Crake (2003) earned the Arthur C. Clarke Award, given annually by the Science Fiction Foundation for the best science fiction novel. Further honors include the International Literary Prize in 2005, awarded by the Franz Kafka Society for a lifetime of outstanding literary achievement, and the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement in 2007, presented by the Kenyon Review for contributions to American letters. In 2003, she received the Literary Award from the City of for her body of work, and the Radcliffe Medal from , recognizing exceptional contributions to . These accolades, drawn from peer-reviewed juries and literary societies, affirm her technical prowess in and thematic exploration, though selections often reflect panel compositions favoring dystopian and feminist-inflected narratives prevalent in late-20th-century literary judging.

Substantive Critiques of Style and Ideology

Critics have identified a persistent in Atwood's literary style, where narrative elements frequently subordinate aesthetic or mimetic concerns to ideological instruction. Frank Davey, in his examination of her , argues that Atwood's consistently adopts an instructional tone, presenting stories less as immersive simulations of reality and more as explicit commentaries on power dynamics and societal flaws. This approach, while effective for thematic emphasis, can result in prose that prioritizes moral or political messaging over character depth or stylistic subtlety, as seen in the repetitive invocation of survival motifs across her oeuvre—from Surfacing (1972) to the trilogy (2003–2013). Atwood's ideological framework, centered on a liberal variant of that stresses individual agency and biological realities over radical collectivism, has elicited rebukes from more doctrinaire feminists for perceived moderation and selectivity. Radical critics contend that her defense of evidentiary standards in cases, such as her commentary on the trial where she highlighted risks to , undermines solidarity with accusers and enables patriarchal impunity. This stance prompted accusations of her being a "," with detractors arguing it dilutes the movement's confrontational edge against systemic male dominance. Conversely, conservative literary observers fault her dystopias, particularly (1985), for embedding an anti-traditional bias that amplifies threats from religious or patriarchal orders while minimizing analogous dangers from statist or progressive authoritarianism, as evidenced by her sourcing of Gilead's regime from historical Puritanism and policies yet framing it predominantly as a caution against right-wing . Such ideological critiques extend to claims of inconsistency in Atwood's application of principles, where her emphasis on women's historical victimization—drawn from empirical precedents like forced birthing under Ceaușescu's (1966–1989)—coexists with reluctance to fully endorse unchecked ideological expansions, such as those in contemporary , leading to portrayals that some view as essentialist or insufficiently intersectional. This tension reflects a broader literary over whether her works transcend ideological advocacy to achieve neutral causal analysis of power or remain tethered to a feminist that privileges certain oppressions over others, informed by her stated rule against inventing misogynistic practices absent from real history.

Adaptations and Cultural Extensions

Media Translations of Key Works

The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel depicting a totalitarian regime enforcing reproductive control over women, has seen multiple screen adaptations. The first was a 1990 feature film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, starring Natasha Richardson as the protagonist Offred and Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received a 6/10 rating on IMDb from over 11,000 users. This adaptation condensed the novel's narrative but faced criticism for softening its political edges, grossing approximately $5 million against a budget exceeding that figure. A more expansive rendition arrived with the television series, premiering on April 26, 2017, and starring as Offred/Under His Eye, with Atwood serving as a consulting to ensure fidelity to the source material's themes of resistance and . The series, which deviates from the by extending the storyline into new events, has aired six seasons as of 2025, earning 16 , including Outstanding Drama Series in 2017, and maintaining an 8.4/10 rating from nearly 300,000 votes. Its success, with viewership peaks during politically charged periods, underscores the work's enduring resonance with concerns over and gender subjugation, though some critics noted its amplification of graphic elements beyond the book's restraint. Atwood's 1996 historical novel , inspired by the real-life 1843 murder case of servant , was adapted into a six-episode miniseries in 2017, directed by and scripted by , featuring in the title role alongside Kerr Logan and . The production, filmed in , , closely mirrored the novel's exploration of unreliable narration, , and 19th-century psychiatric practices, achieving a 99% approval rating on from 82 reviews for its atmospheric tension and psychological depth. Atwood praised the adaptation's handling of ambiguity regarding Marks' guilt, aligning with the book's refusal to resolve historical uncertainties definitively. Lesser-known adaptations include the 1984 Canadian film Surfacing, directed by and based on Atwood's 1972 novel about a woman's psychological unraveling amid environmental and personal loss, starring and , which emphasized the book's themes of and ecological critique but received limited distribution. In 2007, CBC produced a television film of , Atwood's 1993 novel involving vengeful female archetypes, directed by John Greyson and starring , focusing on interpersonal betrayals among women. These works highlight Atwood's recurring motifs of female agency and societal constraint translated to visual media, though none matched the cultural impact of .

Technological and Collaborative Projects

In 2004, Margaret Atwood conceived the , a remote-controlled robotic pen integrated with videoconferencing technology that enables real-time document signing and interaction across distances. The device, developed in collaboration with engineer Matthew Gibson, allows the user to write on a tablet or screen at one location while a mirrors the signature on paper elsewhere, accompanied by live video feed for and personal engagement. Debuting publicly in March 2006, the LongPen was initially designed to facilitate author book signings without travel, but expanded to applications like remote contract execution and legal witnessing. Building on the LongPen's framework, Atwood co-founded Fanado in 2012 with Daniel Edelman, creating an online platform for virtual artist-fan interactions that combined , personalized messaging, and remote signing capabilities. Fanado enabled performers and authors to host events, conduct one-on-one greetings, and sign merchandise digitally, addressing logistical barriers in fan engagement while leveraging and robotic output technologies derived from the . The project raised funds via an campaign to develop mobile features, emphasizing secure, authenticated virtual connections for creative professionals. For her 2016 novel , a modern retelling of Shakespeare's , Atwood collaborated with digital artist Zach Lieberman on an interactive installation featuring generative, hypnotic visuals inspired by the book's themes of illusion and technology. Launched at London's in October 2016 as part of a promotional tour, the project used and responsive algorithms to immerse viewers in a digital storm sequence, blending with contemporary media art to explore narrative immersion in virtual environments. This initiative highlighted Atwood's interest in how emerging digital tools could extend beyond print, though it remained a promotional rather than commercial technological venture.

Awards, Honors, and Recognitions

Margaret Atwood has received extensive recognition for her literary contributions, including multiple prestigious international prizes and national honors. She was appointed an Officer of the in 1973 and promoted to Companion in 1981 for her work as a , , essayist, and . In 1966, she won the Governor General's Award for Poetry for The Circle Game, followed by the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1985 for . Atwood secured the in 2000 for The and shared the prize in 2019 for The . Her dystopian novel The also earned the inaugural for best science fiction in 1987. Other notable literary awards include the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. In 2025, she received the ' Freedom to Publish Award for her advocacy against .
YearAward/HonorAssociated Work or Reason
1961E. J. Pratt MedalDouble Persephone
1966Governor General's Award (Poetry)The Circle Game
1981Companion of the Order of CanadaLiterary contributions
1985Governor General's Award (Fiction)The Handmaid's Tale
1987Arthur C. Clarke AwardThe Handmaid's Tale
2000Booker PrizeThe Blind Assassin
2019Booker Prize (shared)The Testaments
2025Freedom to Publish AwardAdvocacy for free expression
Atwood holds additional distinctions such as the and honorary doctorates from numerous universities, reflecting her influence across poetry, fiction, and criticism.

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