Burning Questions

In this brilliant selection of essays, the award-winning, best-selling author of The Testaments offers her funny, erudite, endlessly curious, and uncannily prescient take on everything from debt and tech to the climate crisis and freedom and the importance of how to define granola.

Informationen zum Autor MARGARET ATWOOD , whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale , now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat's Eye , short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace , which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin , winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake , short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood , MaddAddam ; and Hag-Seed . She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator's Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. Klappentext "A new collection of essays from Margaret Atwood, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments. Short Description / Web 'About this Book' From literary icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of nonfiction-funny, erudite, intimate, impassioned, and always startlingly prescient-which grapples with such wide-ranging topics as: Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? How do we get rid of the immense amount of plastic that's littering our seas and lands? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? Is science fiction now writing us? So what if beauty is only skin deep? What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism? Is it true? And is it fair? In over fifty pieces, taken from lectures, autobiographical essays, book reviews, cultural criticism, obituaries, and new introductions to her own body of work (including The Handmaid's Tale thirty years after its initial publication) as well as that of other writers, we watch Atwood aim her prodigious intellect and impish humor at the world, and report back to us on what she finds. From asking what society's youth expects from its elders (2004), to pondering the philosophical underpinnings of debt (2008, not surprisingly), to encountering a mysterious new platform called Twitter (2009), to asking if it is, in fact, too late to save the planet (2015) or what forces have been unleashed in the age of Trump (2016), and culminating in a breathtaking meditation on grief and poetry in the wake of her own loss (2020), Atwood provokes, probes, delights, surprises, and rewards the reader at every turn"-- Leseprobe Chapter 1 Scientific Romancing (2004) I'm very honoured to have been asked to give the Kesterton Lecture here at Carleton's School of Journalism and Communication. I note that I'm the fourth in this series, and that I've been preceded by three very eminent men. I have always distrusted the number 4, whereas I do have a preference for the number 3. So I've broken the dubious 4 down into two sets: one of three, a lucky moonstruck set, which includes persons of the male persuasion but excludes me; and a second set of one, which includes persons of the female sort and also, incidentally, me. I am therefore the first in a set that I trust will number many more individuals before long. That's the feminism for this evening, which, as you can see, I have cunningly combined with the initial fooling around so you won't feel too threatened by it. I've never known why people have sometimes felt threatened by me. After all, I'm quite short, and apart from Napoleon, what short person has ever been threatening? Second, I'm an icon, as you've doubtless been told, and once you're an icon you're practically dead, and all you have to do is stand very still in parks, turning to bronze while pigeons and others perch on your shoulders and defecate on your head. Third, I amastrologically speakinga Sco...

Autorentext
MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

Klappentext

In this brilliant selection of essays—including three new pieces—the award-winning, best-selling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments offers her funny, erudite, endlessly curious, and uncannily prescient take on everything from whether or not The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopia to the importance of how to define granola—and seeks answers to Burning Questions such as...

• Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? Including thoughts on the writing of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, Oryx & Crake, and Atwood's other beloved works.
• How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating?
• How can we live on our planet?
• Is it true? And is it fair?
• What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?

In more than fifty pieces, Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humor at the world, and reports back to us on what she finds. This roller-coaster period brought the end of history, a financial crash, the rise of Trump, and a pandemic. From when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to Atwood’s views on the climate crisis, we have no better guide to the many and varied mysteries of our universe.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Scientific Romancing

(2004)

I’m very honoured to have been asked to give the Kesterton Lecture here at Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communication.

I note that I’m the fourth in this series, and that I’ve been preceded by three very eminent men. I have always distrusted the number 4, whereas I do have a preference for the number 3. So I’ve broken the dubious 4 down into two sets: one of three, a lucky moonstruck set, which includes persons of the male persuasion but excludes me; and a second set of one, which includes persons of the female sort and also, incidentally, me. I am therefore the first in a set that I trust will number many more individuals before long.

That’s the feminism for this evening, which, as you can see, I have cunningly combined with the initial fooling around so you won’t feel too threatened by it. I’ve never known why people have sometimes felt threatened by me. After all, I’m quite short, and apart from Napoleon, what short person has ever been threatening? Second, I’m an icon, as you’ve doubtless been told, and once you’re an icon you’re practically dead, and all you have to do is stand very still in parks, turning to bronze while pigeons and others perch on your shoulders and defecate on your head. Third, I am—astrologically speaking—a Scorpio, one of the kindest and gentlest of astrological signs. We like to lead quiet lives in the dark and peaceful toes of shoes, where we never give…