The Formidable Margaret Atwood

Regarded as one of Canada’s finest living writers, Margaret Atwood is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist and environmental activist. Her work has received critical acclaim in the United States, Europe and, of course, Canada, and she has received numerous literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Governor General’s Award, twice.

As the speaker at the University of Lethbridge 2015 Calgary Alumni & Friends Dinner (tickets available on the U of L ticket website), Atwood will reflect on her prodigious career, the landscape in which it took shape and how writing can be a vote of confidence in the future.

“I’m not that different from other writers. In fact, I’m not that different from other people because human beings are by nature storytellers; it’s just what we do,” says Margaret Atwood (Photo by Jean Malek)

Readers around the world know her name and rightly associate her with feminism, environmental activism and futurism. Margaret Atwood is considered an authority on any one of these topics, among others, but it’s the overlapping of these spheres in her novels, stories, poems, essays and even tweets that make her work so compelling and give rise to her reputation as a beloved cultural figure in Canada.

While her books are regularly best sellers, Atwood adamantly maintains that she is just like anybody else with a story to tell.

“I’m not that different from other writers. In fact, I’m not that different from other people because human beings are by nature storytellers; it’s just what we do,” explains Atwood. “The narrative interest is a human interest; writers are just people that express it publicly.”

For Atwood, the real interest lies in the stories themselves.

“What is it about certain stories that interest people enough to make them spend time developing and honing them?” she asks.

The author, whose works include speculative fiction classics The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, clearly has wide-ranging interests and acknowledges she reads everything she can get her hands on, referencing the current issue of Harper’s Magazine, legendary science fiction author Ray Bradbury and a recent article in the Globe and Mail, all within the span of a few short minutes. But for Atwood, none of this has any meaning outside of its current context.

“You aren’t a writer apart from your time,” explains the 75-year old matter-of-factly. “I’m not a Victorian novelist because I’m not living in the 19th century. So, the question becomes: what century am I living in and what is it about that century – or centuries, because in my case there’s now two of them – that have made it possible for a person such as myself to do what I’ve been doing?”

Born in 1939, two months after the start of World War II, Atwood’s particular experience was largely defined by the radical cultural shift of the 50s and 60s. As the birth control pill and the mini skirt first captured popular attention, second wave feminism was gaining momentum.

“Those moments are moments I indeed lived through,” reflects Atwood, noting that ultimately it is experience that shapes the individual. “There’s quite a difference between a contemporaneous cultural experience and an archaic reference.”

As an aspiring woman writer in Canada during this period, Atwood encountered a number of obstacles to her literary development.

“In 1960, there were five novels published in the whole year by English Canadian writers and English Canadian publishers. Count them: five. There were 20 books of poetry but that included chat books that people had published in their cellar,” says Atwood, whose career took shape within this crucial period in Canadian literary history.

Compare the scene now and it’s quite different. From our current perspective, Canada is a major player in the literary world and Atwood is an established and internationally respected writer whose critical success is matched only by her popularity amongst readers.

Interestingly, her latest work will remain unseen for the next 100 years.

Atwood was named as the first contributor to an innovative new conceptual art and literary project in Norway. Led by Scottish artist Katie Paterson, the Future Library project kicked off this past summer with the planting of a forest of 1,000 trees just outside Oslo. Starting this year with Atwood and continuing every year until 2114, one writer will be invited to contribute a new text to the library collection.

“You can produce only one copy and you can’t tell what’s in it,” says Atwood, who was intrigued by the project, which locks her most recent work away with only the title and author’s name visible. “One hundred years later, sleeping beauty wakes up and they open all the boxes. Keeping that in mind, my first move was to get some archival paper and some non-fade ink so that when they open the box they don’t find a bunch of yellowed shreds.”

For Atwood, her involvement signals a vote of confidence in the future – that there will be libraries, readers and a need to share our story. 

Atwood herself clearly feels a need to tell stories and as the speaker at the University of Lethbridge 2015 Calgary Alumni & Friends Dinner next March she will do just that.

“If you’re asked to give a speech, it’s best to talk about things you know something about,” says Atwood, coyly avoiding specifics. “It would be a violation of the rules of writing for me to talk about everything I’m going to put in my speech.”

Drawing inspiration from literary giant Charles Dickens to sum up her formula, Atwood says, “Make them laugh; make them cry; make them wait,” thereby leaving us all in suspense.