About the Author - Margaret Atwood

Margaret Eleanor Atwood is  a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist and environmental activist. She is the author of more than 40 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays with themes within her work ranging from art and its creation to the dangers of ideology and sexual politics.

Feminism - Atwood often portrays female characters dominated by patriarchy in her novels and also sheds light on women's social oppression as a result of patriarchal ideology. Atwood does not class herself as a feminist writer and states that the label can only be applied to writers who work consciously within the framework of the feminist movement

Speculative/Social Science Fiction - Atwood resists the idea that some of her novels are science fiction, suggesting instead that they are speculative fiction, things/ideas 'which could actually happen'

Animals - Atwood repeatedly makes observations about our relationship with animals in her with reference to comparing people to animals and eating meat.

Longpen - Atwood is also the inventor of the Longpen, a robotic writing technology which would allow her to conduct her book tours without being physically present.

Notable works include:
.The Handmaids Tales
. Cat's Eye
. Oryx and Crake
. The Edible Woman


I was drawn to researching into Margaret Atwood as the themes throughout her work interested me as I was reading through them. I would also like to learn more about Atwood's role in environmental activism and try and get my hands on some of her poetry to have a look through.