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SPEAKER:
Margaret Atwood
Author
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ABOUT THE LECTURE:
Here are two facts Margaret Atwood wants you to know: She is the daughter of an entomologist -- the kind of scientist, Atwood says, who is “noteworthy for producing weird writer offspring”; and she hates books where “everybody’s happy all the time.”
After 30 years of fiction writing, Atwood is expert at engineering an extreme spin on ordinary life, and pushing the everyday world to its limits. Her talk includes two readings from her latest novel, Oryx and Crake, which she describes as “a joke-filled, fun-packed rollicking adventure story about the downfall of the human race.” Science fiction? Well, only if environmental catastrophe and unforeseen genetic mutations seem farfetched, Atwood suggests. Science isn’t the villain here, though. Atwood embraces the notion of “improvements” on the human race: built-in sunblock, or digestive systems modified to process leaves and grass. As well as shedding light on her latest novel, Atwood reveals juicy tidbits from her early years: she once fancied a career in botany, and had she pursued it, she informs us, she “would be growing glow in the dark potatoes now.”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 25 volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), and Alias Grace (1996). Her novel, The Blind Assassin (2000), won the Booker Prize.
Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
Over 30 years of writing, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and several honorary degrees and her work has been published in more than 30 languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic, and Estonian.
Atwood’s books and life reflect her concern for the environment and human rights. She is active in conservation projects globally, and has served as president of PEN/Canada. She currently resides in Tononto.
Margaret Atwood's site
Margaret Atwood Society
Random House featuring Atwood
NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 59:22.
Alan Brody, Associate Provost for the Arts, introduces the lecture.
At 2:40, Candis Callison, Ph.D. candidate in Science, Technology and Society, introduces Margaret Atwood.
Atwood begins at 5:39. She reads the first excerpt from Oryx and Crake at 23:12 and the second excerpt at 30:24.
Q&A begins at 34:24.
The information on this page was accurate as of the day the video was added to MIT World. This video was added to MIT World on 2004-05-10.
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