Introduction

Summary

Presents Margaret Atwood as a Canadian and international literary superstar, introducing students and general readers to the many different and evolving facets of Atwood’s work across all genres, up to and including The Testaments. This revised edition is both a revisiting of Atwood’s earlier work and a charting of new directions since 2000, with emphasis on her increasing engagement with popular genres, especially dystopias and graphic novels, and her influential online presence. The focus is on Atwood’s topicality, with The Handmaid’s Tale and its recent television adaptations now center stage. Atwood engages with a new generation in response to profound changes in reading practices and changing conditions in publishing and marketing. Atwood’s often controversial feminism and her urgent environmental concerns with survival are treated in the brief overview of her work and Atwoodian criticism since 2000, including discussion of the Atwood archives at the University of Toronto.