Affiliates
| Works by
Margaret Atwood
(aka Margaret Eleanor Atwood)
(Writer)
[1939 - ] |
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Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda (2006) with Dušan Petricic,
Illustrator
Bob never knew he was a human boy, after being
abandoned outside a beauty parlor and then raised by a bunch of dogs. He
barked at businessmen and burrowed under bushes. Fortunately for Bob,
dimple-faced Dorinda, a distressed damsel down on her luck, found him and
taught him how to be a real boy. When a bureaucratic blunder puts the town
in jeopardy, only Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda can save everyone from a
dreadful disaster. Baby - Preschool. -
Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes (2004) with Dušan
Petricic, Illustrator
In Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes,
bestselling author Margaret Atwood offers a delightfully ridiculous tale
about the virtues of resisting restrictions. With tongue-twisting phrases
heavily peppered with words beginning with R, the story follows Ramsay as
he travels with his friend Ralph, the red-nosed rat, from his home full of
revolting relatives to a field of roaring radishes. There he meets a girl
named Rillah, who needs a bit of adventure herself. Atwood's rollicking
text is accompanied by devilish and Dušan Petricic's insightful
illustrations. Ages 4 - 8.
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Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut (1995) with Aryann Kovalski,
Illustrator
Prunella, a proud, prissy, princess, plans to marry
a pinheaded prince who will pamper her--until a wise old woman's spell
puts a purple peanut on the princess's pretty nose.
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For the Birds (1990) with John Bianchi, Illustrator -
Annas Pet (1980) with Joyce C. Barkhouse and Ann Blades, Illustrator -
Up in the Tree (1978)
Two children rejoice in their home up in a tree,
free from parental guidance and earthbound concerns. But when beavers gnaw
their ladder into matchsticks, the children aren’t sure they want to be
quite so alone. Playful, whimsical, and wry, the story is vintage
Atwood. Long out of print, Up in the Tree was first published in
1978. Because it was considered too expensive and risky to publish a
children’s book in Canada, Atwood not only wrote and illustrated the book,
but hand-lettered the type. This facsimile edition captures all the charm
of the original, and makes a thoughtful gift for Atwood fans as well as
for young readers. Ages 9 - 12.
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The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (2005)
"Homer’s Odyssey is not the only version of the story. Mythic material was
originally oral, and also local -- a myth would be told one way in one
place and quite differently in another. I have drawn on material other
than the Odyssey, especially for the details of Penelope’s parentage, her
early life and marriage, and the scandalous rumors circulating about her.
I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve
hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing Chorus, which focuses
on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of the
Odyssey: What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope
really up to? The story as told in the Odyssey doesn’t hold water: there
are too many inconsistencies. I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids
and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself." -- from Margaret Atwood’s
Foreword to The Penelopiad
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Oryx and Crake (2003) - Finalist 2003 Governor General's
Award
With the same stunning blend of prophecy and social
satire she brought to her classic The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret
Atwood gives us a keenly prescient novel about the future of humanity—and
its present.
Humanity here equals Snowman, and in Snowman’s recollections Atwood
re-creates a time much like our own, when a boy named Jimmy loved an
elusive, damaged girl called Oryx and a sardonic genius called Crake. But
now Snowman is alone, and as we learn why we also learn about a world that
could become ours one day.
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The Blind Assassin (2000) - Winner 2000
Booker Prize;
Finalist 2000 Governor General's Award
The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten
days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They
are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is
followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just
as the reader expects to settle into Laura?s story, Atwood introduces a
novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science
fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet
rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article
announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her
husband, a distinguished industrialist. Brilliantly weaving together such
seemingly disparate elements, Atwood creates a world of astonishing vision
and unforgettable impact.
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Alias Grace (1996) - Winner 1996 Giller Prize;
Finalist 1996
Governor General's Award
In Alias Grace, bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her
most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The
Handmaid's Tale. She takes us back in time and into the life of one of
the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century.
Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders
of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and
mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane.
Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the
murders.
Dr. Simon Jordan, an up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of
mental illness, is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who
seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer
and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting
to unlock her memories? Is Grace a female fiend? A bloodthirsty femme
fatale? Or is she the victim of circumstances?
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The Robber Bride (1993) - Finalist 1994 Governor General's
Award
Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride is inspired by "The Robber
Bridegroom," a wonderfully grisly tale from the Brothers Grimm in which an
evil groom lures three maidens into his lair and devours them, one by one.
But in her version, Atwood brilliantly recasts the monster as Zenia, a
villainess of demonic proportions, and sets her loose in the lives of
three friends, Tony,
Charis, and Roz. All three "have lost men, spirit, money, and time to
their old college acquaintance, Zenia. At various times, and in various
emotional disguises, Zenia has insinuated her way into their lives and
practically demolished them.
To Tony, who almost lost her husband and jeopardized her academic career,
Zenia is 'a lurking enemy commando.' To Roz, who did lose her husband and
almost her magazine, Zenia is 'a cold and treacherous bitch.' To Charis,
who lost a boyfriend, quarts of vegetable juice and some pet chickens,
Zenia is a kind of zombie, maybe 'soulless'" (Lorrie Moore, New York
Times Book Review). In love and war, illusion and deceit, Zenia's
subterranean malevolence takes us deep into her enemies' pasts.
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Cat's Eye (1988) - Finalist 988 Governor General's Award
Cat's Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a
controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a
retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she
reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce
politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and
betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a
lover, an artist, and a woman--but above all she must seek release from
her haunting memories. Disturbing, hilarious, and compassionate, Cat's
Eye is a breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the tangled knot
of her life.
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The Handmaid's Tale (1985) - Winner 1987 Arthur C. Clarke
Award; Winner 1985 Governor General's Award
In the world of the near future, who will
control women's bodies?
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of
the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs
are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to
read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander
makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the
other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.
Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her
husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she
had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is
gone now....
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The
Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de
force.
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Bodily Harm (1981)
A powerful and brilliantly crafted novel from the author of Cat's Eye,
Surfacing, Life Before Man, The Edible Woman, and Lady
Oracle. Bodily Harm is the story of Rennie Wilford, a young
journalist whose life has begun to shatter around the edges. Rennie
Wilford flies to the Caribbean to recuperate, and on the tiny island of
St. Antoine, she is confronted by a world where her rules for survival no
longer apply. By turns comic, satiric, relentless, and terrifying,
Margaret Atwood's new novel is ultimately an exploration of the lust for
power both sexual and political, and the need for compassion that goes
beyond what we ordinarily mean by love.
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Life Before Man (1979) - Finalist 1979 Governor General's
Award
Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, here are three people, each
in midlife, in midcrisis, forced to make choices--after the rules have
changed. Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, her suppressed rage,
is married to the wrong man. She has just lost her latest lover to
suicide. Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her
for Lesje, a perennial innocent who prefers dinosaurs to men. Hanging
over them all is the ghost of Elizabeth's dead lover...and the dizzying
threat of three lives careening inevitably toward the same climax.
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Lady Oracle (1976)
Joan Foster is the bored wife of a myopic
ban-the-bomber. She takes off overnight as Canada's new superpoet, pens
lurid gothics on the sly, attracts a blackmailing reporter, skids
cheerfully in and out of menacing plots, hair-raising traps, and
passionate trysts, and lands dead and well in Terremoto, Italy. In this
remarkable, poetic, and magical novel, Margaret Atwood proves yet again
why she is considered to be one of the most important and accomplished
writers of our time.
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Surfacing (1972)
Part detective novel, part psychological thriller,
Surfacing is the story of a talented woman artist who goes in
search of her missing father on a remote island in northern
Quebec. Setting out with her lover and another young couple, she soon
finds herself captivated by the isolated setting, where a marriage begins
to fall apart, violence and death lurk just beneath the surface, and sex
becomes a catalyst for conflict and dangerous choices. Surfacing
is a work permeated with an aura of suspense, complex with layered
meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose. Here is a rich
mine of ideas from an extraordinary writer about contemporary life and
nature, families and marriage, and about women fragmented...and becoming
whole.
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The Edible Woman (1969)
Ever since her engagement, the strangest thing has
been happening to Marian McAlpin: she can't eat. First meat. Then eggs,
vegetables, cake, pumpkin seeds--everything! Worse yet, she has the crazy
feeling that she's being eaten. Marian ought to feel consumed with
passion, but she really just feels...consumed. A brilliant and powerful
work rich in irony and metaphor, The Edible Woman is an
unforgettable masterpiece by a true master of contemporary literary
fiction.
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Moral Disorder: And Other Stories (2006)
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The Tent (2006)
One of the world’s most celebrated authors,
Margaret Atwood has penned a collection of smart and entertaining
fictional essays, in the genre of her popular books Good Bones
and Murder in the Dark, punctuated with wonderful illustrations
by the author. Chilling and witty, prescient and personal, delectable
and tart, these highly imaginative, vintage Atwoodian mini-fictions
speak on a broad range of subjects, reflecting the times we live in
with deadly accuracy and knife-edge precision.
In pieces ranging in length from a mere paragraph to several pages,
Atwood gives a sly pep talk to the ambitious young; writes about the
disconcerting experience of looking at old photos of ourselves; gives
us Horatio's real views on Hamlet; and examines the boons and banes of
orphanhood. “Bring Back Mom: An Invocation” explores what life was
really like for the “perfect” homemakers of days gone by, and in “The
Animals Reject Their Names,” she runs history backward, with
surprising results.
Chilling and witty, prescient and personal, delectable and tart,
The Tent is vintage Atwood. Enhanced by the author’s delightful
drawings, it is perfect for Valentine’s Day, and any other occasion
that demands a special, out-of-the-ordinary gift.
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Good Bones and Simple Murders (1994)
In this collection of short works that defy easy categorization,
Margaret Atwood displays, in condensed and crystallized form, the
trademark wit and viruosity of her best-selling novels,
brilliant stories, and insightful poetry. Among the jewels gathered
here are Gertrude offering Hamlet a piece of her mind, the real truth
about the Little Red Hen, a reincarnated bat explaining how Bram
Stoker got Dracula all wrong, and the five methods of making
a man (such as the "Traditional Method": "Take some dust off the
ground. Form. Breathe into the nostrils the breath of life. Simple,
but effective!") There are parables, monologues, prose poems,
condensed science fiction, reconfigured fairy tales, and other
miniature masterpieces--punctuated with charming illustrations by the
author. A must for her fans, and a wonderful gift for all who savor
the art of exquisite prose, Good Bones And Simple Murders
marks the first time these writings have been available in a trade
edition in the United States.
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Good Bones (1992)
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Wilderness Tips (1991) - Finalist 1991 Governor
General's Award
Here are brilliantly rendered stories that
explore themes of loss and discovery, of the gap between youthful
dreams and mature reality, of how we connect with others and with the
sometimes hidden part of ourselves.
In each of these tales Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the single
instant that shapes a whole life: in a few brief pages we watch as
characters progress through the passions of youth into the precarious
complexities of middle age. By superimposing the past on the present
Atwood paints interior landscapes shaped by time, regret and life's
lost chances, endowing even the banal with a sense of mystery. Richly
layered and disturbing, poignant at times and scathingly witty at
others, the stories in Wilderness Tips take us into the strange
and secret places of the heart and inform the familiar world in which
we live with truths that cut to the bone.
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Murder in the Dark: Short Fictions and Prose Poems (1983)
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Bluebeard's Egg (1983)
By turns humorous and warm, stark and
frightening, Bluebeard'S Egg glows with childhood memories, the
reality of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty men and women
inflict on each other. Here is the familiar outer world of family
summers at remote lakes, winters of political activism, and seasons of
exotic friends, mundane lives, and unexpected loves. But here too is
the inner world of hidden places and all that emerges from them-the
intimately personal, the fantastic, the shockingly real...whether it's
what lives in a mysterious locked room or the secret feelings we all
conceal. In this dramatic and far-ranging collection, Margaret Atwood
proves why she is a true master of the genre.
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Dancing Girls (1977) -
Winner St.
Lawrence Award for Fiction; Winner of The Periodical Distributors of
Canada for Short Fiction
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Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose -- 1983-2005 (2005)
From one of the world’s most passionately engaged
and acclaimed literary citizens comes Writing with Intent, the
largest collection to date of Margaret Atwood’s nonfiction, ranging from
1983 to 2005. Composed of autobiographical essays, cultural commentary,
book reviews, and introductory pieces to great works of literature, this
is the award-winning author's first book-length nonfiction publication in
twenty years. Arranged chronologically, these writings display the
development of Atwood’s worldview as the world around her changes.
Included are the Booker Prize–winning author’s reviews of books by John
Updike, Italo Calvino, Toni Morrison, and others, as well as essays in
which she remembers herself reading Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
at age nineteen, and discusses the influence of George Orwell’s 1984 on
the writing of The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood’s New York Times Book
Review piece that helped make Orhan Pamuk’s Snow a bestseller can be
found here, as well as a look back on a family trip to Afghanistan just
before the Soviet invasion, and her “Letter to America,” written after
September 11, 2001. The insightful and memorable pieces in this book serve
as a testament to Atwood’s career, reminding readers why she is one of the
most esteemed writers of our time.
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Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (2002)
What do we mean when we say that someone is a
writer? Is he or she an entertainer? A high priest of the god Art? An
improver of readers’ minds and morals? And who, for that matter, are these
mysterious readers? In this wise and irresistibly quotable book, one of
the most intelligent writers now working in English addresses the riddle
of her art: why people pursue it, how they view their calling, and what
bargains they make with their audience, both real and imagined.
To these fascinating issues Margaret Atwood brings a candid appraisal of
her own experience as well as a breadth of reading that encompasses
everything from Dante to Elmore Leonard. An ambitious artistic inquiry
conducted with unpretentiousness and charm, Negotiating with the Dead
is an unprecedented insider’s view of the writer’s universe.
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Strange Things: The Malevolent
North in Canadian Literature (1995)
The internationally celebrated author of more than twenty-five books of
fiction, poetry, essays, and criticism, Margaret Atwood is one of Canada's
most esteemed literary figures. She has won many literary awards, her work
has been translated into twenty-two languages, her novel The Handmaid's
Tale was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter, and her most recent
book, The Robber Bride, was on the New York Times bestseller list
(in cloth and paper) for months. In Strange Things, Atwood turns to
the literary imagination of her native land, as she explores the mystique
of the Canadian North and its impact on the work of writers such as
Robertson Davies, Alice Munroe, and Michael Ondaatje.
Here readers will delight in Atwood's stimulating discussion of stories
and storytelling, myths and their recreations, fiction and fact, and the
weirdness of nature. In particular, she looks at three legends of the
Canadian North. She describes the mystery of the disastrous Franklin
expedition in which 135 people disappeared into the uncharted North. She
examines the "Grey Owl syndrome" of white writers who turn primitive. And
she looks at the terrifying myth of the cannibalistic, ice-hearted Wendigo--the
gruesome Canadia snow monster who can spot the ice in your own heart and
turn you into a Wendigo. Atwood shows how these myths have fired the
literary imagination of her native Canada and have deeply colored
essential components of its literature. And in a moving, final chapter,
she discusses how a new generation of Canadian women writers have adapted
the imagery of the North to explore contemporary themes of gender, the
family, and sexuality.
Written with the delightful style and narrative grace which will be
immediately familiar to all of Atwood's fans, this superbly crafted and
compelling portrait of the mysterious North is at once a fascinating
insight into the Canadian imagination, and an exciting new work from an
outstanding literary presence.
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Second Words: Selected Critical Prose (1982)
Included are fifty essays spanning twenty years,
revealing a major international writer's views on feminism, Canadian
literature, the creative process, nationalism, sexism, and critical
commentary on such writers as Erica Jong, E. L. Doctorow, Northrop Frye,
Roch Carrier, Marie-Claire Blais, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia
Plath, and many more.
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Days of the Rebels 1815-1840 (1977)
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Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972)
When first published in 1972, Survival was
considered the most startling book ever written about Canadian literature.
Since then, it has continued to be read and taught, and it continues to
shape the way Canadians look at themselves. Distinguished, provocative,
and written in effervescent, compulsively readable prose, Survival
is simultaneously a book of criticism, a manifesto, and a collection of
personal and subversive remarks. Margaret Atwood begins by asking: ?What
have been the central preoccupations of our poetry and fiction?? Her
answer is ?survival and victims.?
Atwood applies this thesis in twelve brilliant, witty, and impassioned
chapters; from Moodie to MacLennan to Blais, from Pratt to Purdy to
Gibson, she lights up familiar books in wholly new perspectives.
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The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories (1995) with
Robert Weaver, ed.
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Erotica (1991)
Here is the first collection of female erotic
writing through the ages, and the first to reveal the form's amazing
scope--as multifaceted as the sexuality of women themselves. EROTICA
reveals the history of women's erotic writing and reexamines the literary
expression of female sexuality. Included in this unique anthology are:
Kathy Acker, Jane Austen, Anne Boleyn, Kate Copin, H.D., Radclyffe Hall,
Edna O'Brien, Vita Sackville-West, Stevie Smith, Marina Tsvetayeva,
Virginia Woolf, and many others.
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Best American Short Stories, 1989 (1989) with Shannon Ravenel
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The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English
(1988) with Robert Weaver, ed.
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The Canlit Foodbook:
From Pen to palate - A Collection of Tasty Literary Fare (1987)
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The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English
(1982)
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The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood (2006), Coral Ann
Howells, ed.
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Waltzing Again (2006) by Earl G. Ingersoll
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Margaret Atwood (2005) by Corel Ann Howell
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Margaret Atwood: A Critical Companion (2004) by Nathalie
Cooke
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Margaret Atwood's Textual Assasssination: Recent Poetry and Fiction (2004) by Sharon Rose Wilson
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Margaret Atwood (Beginners Guide) (2002) by Pilar Cuder-Dominguez
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Margaret Atwood: Works and Impact (2002), Reingard M.
Nischik, ed.
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Margaret Atwood: A Biography (1998) by Nathalie Cooke
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The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out (1998) by Rosemary
Sullivan
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Margaret Atwood (1996) by Coral Ann Howells
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Various Atwoods: Essays on the Later Poems, Short Fiction, and Novels (1995), Lorraine M. York, ed.
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Strategies for Identity: The Fiction of Margaret Atwood
(1994) by Eleonora Rao
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Collecting Clues: Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm (1993) by
Lorna Irvine
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Margaret Atwood's Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics (1993) by Sharon Rose
Wilson
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Margaret Atwood: Conversations (1990), Earl G. Ingersoll,
ed.
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Critical Essays on Margaret Atwood (1988), Judith McCombs,
ed.
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Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms (1988), Jan Garden Castro and Kathryn Van Spanckeren, eds.
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Margaret Atwood (1984) by Jerome H. Rosenberg
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Margaret Atwood: Language, Text and System (1983),
Lorraine Weir and Sherrill Grace, eds.
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Violent Duality; A Study of Margaret Atwood (1980) by Sherill Grace
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Art of Margaret Atwood: Essays In Criticism (1980),
Arnold and Cathy Davidson, eds.
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Margaret Atwood
Is Listed As A Favorite Of
(Alphabetical Order
By First Name)
Collin Kelley
David Ebershoff
Ellen Hart
Lisa Glass
Magdalena Ball
Marsha Briscoe
Robin Reardon
Margaret's Favorite
Authors/Books
(Alphabetical Order
By First Name)
[As of x] TO BE DETERMINED |
