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32 results

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  • Chapter 11 - Margaret Atwood’s Recent Dystopias

  • Edited by Coral Ann Howells, Institute of English Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood
    Published online:
    19 March 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021, pp 171-188

  • Summary

    This chapter considers the central place of dystopia in Atwood’s work since 2000 in its discussion of the MaddAddam trilogy, The Heart Goes Last, and The Testaments. The focus is on the contrasts between the trilogy with its epic dimensions of postapocalyptic speculation and the two later dystopias that return to the network of human relations in situations close to our contemporary world. Analysis of the trilogy traces its narrative arc across three volumes from global disaster to futuristic vision, while The Heart Goes Last is darkly comic social satire addressing anxieties around threats to human freedom in the age of corporate capitalism, high-tech surveillance, and biomedical experiments. In The Testaments Atwood reclaims her story in real time with its update of Gilead, focusing on patriarchal tyranny and women’s strategies of resistance, ending with a glimmer of hope. An emphasis on Atwood’s storytelling with its genre-crossing strategies establishes connections between these dystopias, identifying the distinctive Atwood idiom.

  • Introduction

  • Edited by Coral Ann Howells, Institute of English Studies, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood
    Published online:
    19 March 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021, pp 1-13

  • Summary

    Presents Margaret Atwood as a Canadian and international literary superstar, introducing students and general readers to the many different and evolving facets of Atwood’s work across all genres, up to and including The Testaments. This revised edition is both a revisiting of Atwood’s earlier work and a charting of new directions since 2000, with emphasis on her increasing engagement with popular genres, especially dystopias and graphic novels, and her influential online presence. The focus is on Atwood’s topicality, with The Handmaid’s Tale and its recent television adaptations now center stage. Atwood engages with a new generation in response to profound changes in reading practices and changing conditions in publishing and marketing. Atwood’s often controversial feminism and her urgent environmental concerns with survival are treated in the brief overview of her work and Atwoodian criticism since 2000, including discussion of the Atwood archives at the University of Toronto.

The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood
  • 2nd edition
  • Edited by Coral Ann Howells
  • Published online:
    19 March 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021
  • The field of Margaret Atwood studies, like her own work, is in constant evolution. This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood provides substantial reconceptualization of Atwood's writing in multiple genres that has spanned six decades, with particular focus on developments since 2000. Exploring Atwood in our contemporary context, this edition discusses the relationship between her Canadian identity and her role as an international literary celebrity and spokesperson on global issues, ranging from environmentalism to women's rights to digital technology. As well as providing novel insights into Atwood's recent dystopias and classic texts, this edition highlights a significant dimension in the reception of Atwood's work, with new material on the striking Hulu and MGM television adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale. This up-to-date volume illuminates new directions in Atwood's career, and introduces students, scholars and general readers alike to the ever-expanding dimensions of her literary art.

The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature
  • Edited by Coral Ann Howells, Eva-Marie Kröller
  • Published online:
    28 September 2010
    Print publication:
    05 November 2009
  • From Aboriginal writing to Margaret Atwood, this is a complete English-language history of Canadian writing in English and French from its beginnings. The multi-authored volume pays special attention to works from the 1960s and after, to multicultural and indigenous writing, popular literature, and the interaction of anglophone and francophone cultures throughout Canadian history. Established genres such as fiction, drama and poetry are discussed alongside forms of writing which have traditionally received less attention, such as the essay, nature-writing, life-writing, journalism, and comics, and also writing in which the conventional separation between genres has broken down, such as the poetic novel. Written by an international team of distinguished scholars, the volume includes a separate, substantial section discussing major genres in French, as well as a detailed chronology of historical and literary/cultural events, and an extensive bibliography covering criticism in English and French.

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