Negotiating with the Dead

　　What is the role of the Writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art?Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her ownchildhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines themetaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used toexplain--or excuse --their activities, looking at what costumesthey have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play. In herfinal chapter she takes up the challenge of the title: if a writeris to be seen as "gifted," who is doing the giving and what are theterms of the gift? Atwood's wide reference to other writers, livingand dead, is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences, bothin Canada and elsewhere. The lightness of her touch is offset by aseriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and bya deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of westernliterature. Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew upin northern Quebec, Ontario, and Toronto. She received herundergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University ofToronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College. Throughouther thirty years of writing, Atwood has received numerous awardsand honorary degrees. Hew newest novel, The Blind Assassin, won the2000 Booker Prize for Fiction. She is the author of more thantwenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction and isperhaps best known for her novels, which include Alias Grace(1996), The Robber Bride (1994), Cat's Eye (1988), The Handmaid'sTale (1983), Surfacing (1972) and The Edible Woman (1970).Acclaimed for her talent for portraying both personal lives andworldly problems of universal concern, Atwood's work has beenpublished in more than thirty-five languages, including Japanese,Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic, and Estonian.