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Oryx and Crake Revealed

Margaret Atwood: April 4, 2004; Running Time: 59:22

About the Lecture

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.”

Lecture Details

Location: 10-250

“My first book signing was in the men’s sock and underwear department in Hudson’s Bay Company in Edmonton, Alberta. It was my publicist’s first week on the job. There I was with a little pile of books saying The Edible Woman. Guys in galoshes in winter looking to snag jockey shorts took one look at me and ran the other way. This is the glamorous literary life. ”

Margaret Atwood

About the Speaker

Margaret Atwood

Author

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.