Margaret Atwood's biography

Biographical details

Margaret Eleanor Atwood is an 81-year-old writer, but not only that, she is also a novelist, poet, environmental activist and more. During her career she wrote over 50 books including, poetry books, novel, nonfictional book, graphic novel, and a bunch of small press edition.  The genre of writing that she does can vary, she does speculative fiction, science fiction, dystopian fiction, and historical fiction.

In her career she won many awards as 2 books prize Clarke awards in 1966 and 1985, the Humanist of the year in 1987, the Arthur C Clarke Award for best Science Fiction in 1987, Author of the year from the Canadian booksellers Association in 1989, the most recent Dayton literary Peace Prize in 2020 and many more. She also has a lot of honorary degree: Concordia University in 1979, University of Toronto in 1983, University of Waterloo in 1985 and many many more

Family 

She was born November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario which makes her a Canadian. Her parents are Margaret Dorothy she is a dietitian and nutritionist.  Her father Carl Edmund Atwood and he is an entomologist. She is the second of three kids. The first her sister Ruth Atwood born in 1951, her and then her brother Harold Leslie Atwood born in 1953. She also claims that Mary Webster a witchcraft-lynching survivor form the 17^th century is an ancestor of her family, she so dedicated Handmaid’s tale to her.  

After a divorced in 1973, she got into a relationship with Graeme Gibson, they had a daughter together in 1976 which they named Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson. They moved back to Toronto in 1980 and stayed a couple until the 18 of September 2019 her husband died form dementia.

Childhood

During all of Atwood childhood there was a lot of traveling back and fort between Ottawa, Sault Ste Marie, and Toronto due to the work of her father. This situation made that she was not full time in school until she was 12 years old. Which did not stop her to start her passion for writing, at 6 years old she was already writing play and musical it was her favorite thing to do to spend her time when she was away from school for a long time 

Education

She went to high School in Leaside in which she graduated in 1957. During those years at 16 specifically she realized that she wanted to write professionally.  She then began to study at the Victoria College at the University of Toronto. In these years she published poems In the Acta Victoria (the college journal). She graduated from Victoria College in 1961 with a Bachelor of art in English with honours and a Minor in Philosophy and French.

After that still in 1961 She started studying at Radcliffe College of Harvard with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. And obtains her Masters degree in 1962

Reasons to become an author

Margaret was an early writer, more precisely she started writing professionally at the age of 16. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. This was where she published poems and articles in Acta Victoriana, the college literary journal, and participated in the sophomore theatrical tradition of The Bob Comedy Revue. This inspired her a lot in her writing. She then wrote comics, little stories, and her first novel when she was seven. This novel was about an ant, but it was not a great success. After that, she lost interest in writing and wanted to be a painter, but there was not much success in that field for her either. Many of her poems are inspired by myths and fairy tales which interested her from a very early age. Atwood is a founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize anWell, she became a writer partly because she was a very early reader. She started reading at a young age because she grew up in the North Woods, and there was not much to do and see. There was no radio, no television, no theater, no cinema, no electricity, and no running water, but there were books.

Pathway taken to become an author

Her first entrepreneurial activity was a puppetry business in high school. She ran with other people birthday parties for toddlers with puppet shows such as the "Three Little Pigs", the "Little Red Riding Hood," and the "Hansel and Gretel." She then started thinking about writing more often, around 16 years old. After that, Atwood thought she could maybe go to journalism school, but was discouraged by other people telling her that by being a female working for a newspaper in the '50s, she would be writing nothing but the obituaries and the fashion pages.

After this rough beginning, she thought of running away to Paris to live an independent life and die young. She would first study English language and literature because she thought of being a teacher before writing professionally. She then actually ended up going to graduate school at Harvard, which was proposed to her because it was seen as better than being a waitress. People would tell her that she would get more writing done that way as a way of humoring her.

She actually did have one of her advisors tell her that she should just forget about this writing, graduate school business, find a good man and get married like the typical woman in the '50s. She didn’t listen to this advisor and followed her dreams. By this time, she was already publishing in small literary magazines, and she was already writing the same kinds of things that she continued to write all those years such as poetry, fiction, nonfiction and dramatic works. She then continued doing those things in the world of little magazines and small publishing, and she published her first book of poetry in 1966. That book of poetry won the only literary prize in Canada at that time. She also got a letter from one of the few publishing companies that then existed saying they heard that she had a novel. Her career then started successfully from there.

Significant moments in her life

In 1961, Atwood started her studies at the Radclife College of Harvard after receiving several prizes for her work, such as the E.J. Pratt medal in Poetry and the Woodrow Wilson scholarship. She obtained her master in English Literature in 1962 and will study at Harvard for 4 more years. She will then teach in many Univeristies, such as the University of British-Columbia, Concordia, University of Alberta, York University and NYU.

In 1968, Margaret Atwood got married to Jim Polk, an American writer she met at Harvard. They got divorced in 1973. She then started dating Graeme Gibson, the love of her life. They met under writing circumstances, Gibson being a novelist himself. They never got married but did have a daughter together, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, born in 1976. A fan once said about Gibson he is « the husband every novelist shoud marry » and Atwood loved it so much she printed it on a shirt. Gibson suffered of dementia and died at the age of 85 in 2019 due to complication.

 

Margaret Atwood wrote a lot, from novels to poetry, such as The Blind Assassin, The Robber Bride, The Testaments, Double Persephone and more. She has received many awards and honorary degrees for her work.

Her most important work

The work Margaret Atwood is best known for is her sixth novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. Published in 1985, the novel was a commercial and critical success. Ron Charles wrote in the Washington post : « The most popular in influential feminist novel ever written. ».  The Handmaid’s Tale sold  over 8 millions copies, 3 millions of them in 2016 during the american elections. It was translated in more than 40 languages and is often studied in high schools and universities.

 

In 1990, Volker Schlöndorff, a German filmmaker, produced a movie titled as the novel. A lot of fans of the book didn’t like the movie, as it was made to be an erotic thriller, unlike Margaret Atwood’s novel. The reviews weren’t the best and the movie wasn’t a hit.

 

In 2017, the novel was adapted to create a TV series, named after Atwood’s book, for which the author was a consulting producer. The series was a big hit and won 8 Emmy awards. The series is very close to the book, but they added some current problems in our modern society, islamophobia the refugee crisis being examples. Since the series followed the american elections won by Donald Trump in 2016, the viewers really hold on to the story, which gave the series a lot of attention and good reviews.

 

People loved the book and the series so much that Margaret Atwood had to write a second novel in 2019, 34 years after the first one was released. It was voted Best Fiction novel in the Goodreads Choice Awards of 2019.

Fun/Interesting facts

•  Pauline” is a chamber opera in two acts written by Margaret Atwood. It premiered at Vancouver’s York Theatre, on May 23rd 2014.
•  When she was a child, she wanted to become a painter. Even if she chose a different path, she still has designed some of her poetry books covers. The author also said that when she retires, she may return to painting. 
•  Margaret Atwood don’t drive. She prefers to walk around in her neighborhood and stopping to talk with her friends about life.
•  She has a very special hat made out of newspaper, cardboard, and plastic bags.

 

Other information:

While going on a book tour, authors can’t be in two cities at the same time, and they also have to face many other difficulties while travelling. In 2004, Margaret Atwood came up with a surprising idea. What if it were possible for her to sign fan’s books while not being physically present at an event?

The “LongPen” is a device which enables a writer to sign books virtually. People using the signing device can write anything in ink, anywhere in the world, via Internet with a tablet connected to a robotic hand. Initially, it was only an idea she thought about, but in 2006 it became reality.

The LongPen also allow the author to be on a video call with her fans so she can communicate with them.

Sources

www.heavy.com 

 www.pole-lecture.com

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com

https://bookstr.com

https://interestingliterature.com

www.wikipedia.com