Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa and educated at the University of Toronto, Radcliffe College and Harvard University. Much of her childhood was spent in the Canadian North, where her entomologist father took his family into the wilderness in the course of his work.Atwood originally attracted attention as a poet. She published her first collection, Double Persephone, in 1961, following it with, The Circle Game (1966), which won the Canadian Governor-General's Award for poetry. Later collections, such as, The Animals in That Country (1968), Power Politics (1971) and You Are Happy (1974), were also well received. In general, her poems celebrate the natural world and condemn materialism.
International acclaim came to Atwood in 1969 with the publication of her first novel, the surreal The Edible Woman. This was followed by Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), Bodily Harm (1981), The Handmaid's Tale (1985), Cat's Eye (1989) and The Robber Bride (1993). Both the futuristic The Handmaid's Tale and Cat's Eye were short-listed for the Booker Prize but she won the Booker Prize in 2000 with her novel the The Blind Assassin.
In these and other novels, Atwood typically creates women characters who are forced to reconstruct themselves in a more self-reliant and courageous form as they seek to establish their relationship to the world and to the individuals around them. A collection of stories, Wilderness Tips, published in 1991, covers similar themes.
Atwood's dissections of contemporary urban life and sexual politics have been particularly welcomed by feminists. She is no less interested in establishing what it means to be Canadian, centring her stories in Canadian cities, conflicts and contemporary people. Her analysis of Canadian literature, Survival, urges Canadians to focus on and value their own experience.
