ATWOOD, MARGARET (ELEANOR)

born Nov. 18, 1939, Ottawa, Ont., Can. Canadian poet, novelist, and critic, noted for her Canadian nationalism and her feminism. Atwood's family was continually on the move because of her entomologist father's work, which often took the family into northern, sparsely settled bush country. She began writing at age five and resumed her efforts, more seriously, a decade later. In her early poetry collections, Double Persephone (1961), The Circle Game (1964, revised in 1966), and The Animals in That Country (1968), Atwood ponders human behaviour, celebrates the natural world, and condemns materialism. Role reversal and new beginnings are recurrent themes in her novels, all of them centred on women seeking their relationship to the world and the individuals around them. Her novels include the surreal The Edible Woman (1969), Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), Life Before Man (1979), Bodily Harm (1981), The Handmaid's Tale (1985), Cat's Eye (1988), and The Robber Bride (1993). A collection of stories, Wilderness Tips, was published in 1991. Atwood taught English literature at several Canadian universities.