Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

November 18, 1939

Although Margaret Atwood doesn't consider herself a science fiction genre writer, her novel The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian tale set in a world where declining birth rates have condemned fertile women to slavery, is considered to be one of the best feminist science fiction works.

Atwood has written fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children's books, television scripts, and even a play: an adaptation of her novella The Penelopiad (2005). Her prolific body of work reflects her interest in fantasy, mythology, speculative futures, feminism, Canadian identity, environmentalism, and political action.

It wasn't until the publication of her novel The Handmaid's Tale in 1985, which won both the Governor General's Award in Canada and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1986, that Atwood became known for her science fiction writing.

In 2003 Atwood published Oryx and Crake, the first novel in a series set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where a natural disaster has obliterated most of human life. The other novels in the series are The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013). In 2015 Atwood was awarded the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society.

Selected Bibliography

Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein (1966)
The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
Oryx and Crake (2003)
The Year of the Flood (2009)
MaddAddam (2013)