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Margaret Atwood
By | February 19, 2008
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poetess of considerable fame. She was born in Ontario in 1939 to a forest entomologist and spent much of her early life in Quebec. At the age of seven she moved to Toronto where she studied at the University of Toronto and then earned her masters degree at Radcliffe College in Massachusetts in 1962.
She is by far Canada’s most eminent novelist and poet and she is also well known for writing short stories, critical studies, screenplays, radio scripts and also books for children. Her reviews and articles have appeared in many eminent magazines and she herself has also edited many books. Atwood has been a full time writer since 1972 and first taught English and then held a number of academic posts. In 1981-82 she was the president of the Writers Union of Canada and also president of the PEN, Canada from 1984-86.
Her first published work was a book of poetry called The Circle Game which was published in 1964 and received the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Since then she has written many other poetry collections. She is famed for her novels in which she creates strong and enigmatic female characters and talks about urban life and other contemporary issues. Her debut novel The Edible Woman published in 1969 was about a woman who couldn’t eat and felt she was being eaten. Her most recent book has been Oryx and Crake in 2003 which was a vision of a scientific dystopia and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and for the 2004 Orange Prize for fiction.
She is currently a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and is the recipient of sixteen honorary degrees. She has lived in many countries and currently lives in Toronto.
Topics: Famous Poets |