Margaret Atwood
Winner of the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist, born in Ottawa in 1939, who is also known as a critic, essayist, and poet, as well as an activist on feminist and ecological issues.
About Margaret Atwood
“The Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award is given to Margaret Atwood for her use of myths, fairy tales, and fantastical and speculative narratives to illuminate contemporary political issues, as well as for elevating so-called speculative fiction to a higher art form.”
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist, born in Ottawa in 1939, who is also known as a critic, essayist, and poet, as well as an activist on feminist and ecological issues. A recipient of Man Booker and National Book Critics’ Awards, among others, her novels, poetry, and essay collections have touched on a wide range of issues, though she is particularly known for her in-depth and vivid depictions of gender and climate issues.
Atwood was deeply fascinated by myth and folklore from an early age, as can be seen in works such as Penelopiad (2005), a rewriting of The Odyssey from Penelope’s rather than Odysseus’ perspective, as well as in The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), which despite its immediate roots in the science fiction genre also clearly leans heavily on classic fairy tales. Throughout her career, Atwood has thus managed to blend traditional myths, fairy tales, and narrative forms with genres such as science fiction to illuminate both universally valid power structures between, for example, men and women, but has also managed to bring to the fore relevant contemporary political problems such as emerging religious fundamentalism, racism, and climate issues. Her MaddAddam trilogy (2003-2013) has thus been a weighty commentary on the cynicism of big business and the global pharmaceutical industry, but also on modern man’s overall blind faith in science as the solution to all (human) problems. This universal aspect of Atwood’s work has also recently manifested itself in the wild popularity The Handmaid’s Tale has experienced as a commentary on Trump’s politics (partly prompted by HBO’s film adaptation of the novel as a TV series), though it was originally written as a commentary on the Reagan-era’s resurgence of conservatism and misogynism.
Atwood, like Andersen, has thus managed to use traditional narrative forms, but developed them further for the present in which they were written. In this context, Atwood has actively and critically entered the discussion of genre by insisting on using the term ‘speculative fiction’ for works such as The Handmaid’s Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy rather than ‘science fiction,’ which she generally regards as male-dominated, technology fetishistic, and futuristic rather than contemporary. Atwood, like Andersen, is thus both critically and artistically deeply engaged with the political and ethical potential of literature through innovative hybrids of traditional and newer narrative forms.