Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood, born 1939 in Ottawa, Canada, is a force to be reckoned with in 20th and 21st Century literature. She grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec and in Toronto. Her education was Canadian with a salting of graduate work at Radcliffe and Harvard in the US. She can turn a skilled hand to short stories, poetry, essays and reviews, and novels. She is an enthusiastic transgressor of categories, so-called literary genres, and she is generous with introductions, forewords, and prefaces to other writers. She wants to comprehend it all, and she wants her readers to keep up.
I was very fortunate to support Atwood when she gave a talk at Dickinson College, providing books and sales support after her presentation. We had a chance to really talk. I was amazed by her sophisticated grasp of the book business (most writers really don’t care, which I think is odd). She was keen, alert, full of questions, interested. We seemed to hit it off as cousin-professionals. I always appreciate her for it and am grateful for her generosity.
Bodily Harm
Bodily Harm
From the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments • By turns satiric, thrilling, and terrifying, Bodily Harm charts the dark currents of the lust for power—both sexual and political—as it builds to a devastating climax.
Rennie Wilford is a journalist who writes about the latest trends and considers herself an expert on the superficial surfaces of life.
When her own life takes a dark turn, she seeks to recuperate by flying to the Caribbean to research a fluffy travel piece. But her carelessly chosen destination, the tiny island of St. Antoine, is on the verge of a violent revolution and Rennie soon finds herself ensnared in a world of corruption and treachery and unsure whom to trust.