Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

by Margaret Atwood

Overview

From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments: "A clear-eyed glance into the shadows where writers work and live.” —The Washington Post Book World

In this wise and irresistibly quotable book, one of the most intelligent writers now working in English addresses the riddle of her art: why people pursue it, how they view their calling, and what bargains they make with their audiences, both real and imagined. To these fascinating issues Margaret Atwood brings a candid appraisal of her own experience as well as a breadth of reading that encompasses everything from Dante to Elmore Leonard. An ambitious artistic inquiry conducted with unpretentious charm, Negotiating with the Dead is an invaluable insider’s view of the writer’s universe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781400032600
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/09/2003
Series:	Empson Lectures
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	409,593
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.98(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.
 
Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Hometown:

Toronto, Ontario

Date of Birth:

November 18, 1939

Place of Birth:

Ottawa, Ontario

Education:

B.A., University of Toronto, 1961; M.A. Radcliffe, 1962; Ph.D., Harvard University, 1967

Website:

http://www.owtoad.com

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Orientation: who do you think you are?; 2. Duplicity: the Jekyll hand, the Hyde hand, and the slippery double; 3. Dedication: the great god Pen; 4. Temptation: Prospero, the Wizard of Oz, Mephisto and Co; 5. Communion: nobody to nobody; 6. Descent: negotiating with the dead.

Editorial Reviews

A delight. . . . Frank and spirited. . . . A clear-eyed glance into the shadows where writers work and live.” —The Washington Post Book World

“An engaging book—erudite yet informal, playfully witty yet down to earth.” —Los Angeles Times

“Smart, deeply humane, courageous. . . . I have never come across a single book that more elegantly goes to the heart of the craft and its demands. . . . Hooray for Atwood!” —Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun

“This amazing woman’s voice, this fine writer’s constant example, is extraordinary.” —The Boston Globe

“Smart, deeply humane, courageous. . . . I have never come across a single book that more elegantly goes to the heart of the craft and its demands. . . . Hooray for Atwood!” –Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun

From the Publisher