Dorsett Lecture
Margaret Atwood
April 18, 2019 at 4:30
Her talk is available to stream with a Dartmouth Id here.
Spaulding Auditorium
A master of speculative fiction proves that literature can show us our future—if we look.
Booker Prize-winning author of over fifty books, including The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace.
“Every totalitarian government on the planet has always taken a very great interest in women’s reproductive rights,” says Margaret Atwood; a disquieting insight at any time, but particularly in today’s portentous political landscape. Just as it did when it was published, the story of The Handmaid’s Tale—a future where women’s reproductive rights are governed by a conservative (and patriarchal) administration—is unearthing chilling patterns to an uneasy public.
Two blockbuster television adaptations—first The Handmaid’s Tale, then Alias Grace—have meant that Margaret Atwood’s vision is reaching a wider audience than ever before. The Handmaid’s Tale received 13 Emmy nominations and eight awards—including for Best Drama. Atwood herself received a standing ovation. Alias Grace is based on Atwood’s Giller-winning, Booker-shortlisted murder mystery, and is notable for being written, produced, and directed by women. A winner of many international literary awards, including the prestigious Booker Prize, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Governor General’s Award, the PEN Pinter Prize, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, she is the author of more than fifty volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction.
She is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood. Her non-fiction book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, part of the Massey Lecture series, was made into a documentary. Her novel, MadAddam (the third novel in the Oryx and Crake trilogy), has received rave reviews: The trilogy is being adapted into an HBO TV series by celebrated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky.
Atwood’s most recent collection of short stories is Stone Mattress. Her most recent novel is Hag-Seed, a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Atwood’s work has been published in more than 40 languages. In 2004, she co-invented the LongPen, a remote signing device that allows someone to write in ink anywhere in the world via tablet PC and the internet.
She is a founder of the Writers’ Trust of Canada and a founding trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is also a popular personality on Twitter, with over a million followers.
Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master’s degree from Radcliffe College.