The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s international celebrity has given a new visibility to Canadian literature in English. This Companion provides a comprehensive critical account of Atwood’s writing across the wide range of genres within which she has worked for the past forty years, while paying attention to her Canadian cultural context and the multiple dimensions of her celebrity. The main concern is with Atwood the writer, but there is also Atwood the media star and public performer, cultural critic, environmentalist and human rights spokeswoman, social and political satirist, and mythmaker. This immensely varied profile is addressed in a series of chapters which cover biographical, textual, and contextual issues. The Introduction contains an analysis of dominant trends in Atwood criticism since the 1970s, while the essays by twelve leading international Atwood critics represent the wide range of different perspectives in current Atwood scholarship.

• The most comprehensive and up to date critical account of the work of Margaret Atwood • Broad contextual and thematic chapters with readings of particular texts, useful for both students and teachers • Includes a chronology and a helpful guide to further reading for easy reference

Margaret Atwood chronology; Introduction Coral Ann Howells; 1. Margaret Atwood in her Canadian context David Staines; 2. Biography/Autobiography Lorraine York; 3. Power politics: power and identity Pilar Somacarrera; 4. Margaret Atwood’s female bodies Madeleine Davies; 5. Margaret Atwood and environmentalism Shannon Hengen; 6. Margaret Atwood and history Coomi S. Vevaina; 7. Home and nation in Margaret Atwood’s later fiction Eleanora Rao; 8. Margaret Atwood’s humour Marta Dvorak; 9. Margaret Atwood’s poetry and poetics Branko Gorjup; 10. Margaret Atwood’s short stories and shorter fictions Reingard M. Nischik; 11. Margaret Atwood’s dystopian visions: The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake Coral Ann Howells; 12. Blindness and survival in Margaret Atwood’s major novels Sharon R. Wilson; Further reading.

Margaret Atwood Society Best Book Award 2007 - Winner