The prodigious Canadian writer Margaret Atwood is about to publish her latest novel. Just don’t call her an 'icon’ or put her on a pedestal.
Margaret Atwood at the
University of Toronto Photo: ANGELA
LEWIS
The author Margaret Atwood
speaks with a queenly drawl that suggests nothing could surprise her, little
could impress her.
It’s a drawl so quiet that I find myself leaning across the café table,
craning and straining for her words.If she notices this, she’s choosing to
ignore it, but then Atwood is used to people bending (in my case, literally) to
her every pronouncement.
In the 49 years that the 73-year-old has been publishing (her prodigious
bibliography includes more than 30 novels and books of poetry) she’s become one
of Canada’s most famous exports – a bestselling writer and a beloved cultural
figure.
We meet in Toronto, where she lives, and in the time we spend talking she’s
accosted by no fewer than four acolytes. Holding court seems to be her default
mode.
She’s dressed all in black, her white-grey hair in a stiff corona, and her
fearsomely lively eyes are an engaging contrast with that slow and slightly
supercilious voice.
Atwood is about to publish MaddAddam, the third novel of a dystopian, futuristic trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake in 2003 and continued in 2009 with The Year of the Flood.
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Atwood is about to publish MaddAddam, the third novel of a dystopian, futuristic trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake in 2003 and continued in 2009 with The Year of the Flood.
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