Novelist, poet, cultural critic, Margaret Atwood is one of the mostfascinating, versatile, and productive authors of our time, a superbwriter in any genre she chooses to tackle. This book was prepared on theoccasion of Atwood's sixtieth birthday in November 1999. Its first aimis therefore to take stock of Atwood's multifarious works andinternational impact at the height of her creative powers. Secondly, thebook serves as a wide-ranging introduction to the writer and her works.Fifteen informative articles written specifically for this volume byAtwood specialists from Canada, the USA, the UK, Germany, and Francetreat her life and status, her works (up-to-date survey articles onAtwood's novels, short fiction, poetry, and literary and culturalcriticism), and important approaches to her works (from the standpointsof gender politics, mythology, ecology, popular culture, constructivism,and Canadian nationalism). A final section on creativity, transmission,and reception includes an interview with Atwood on creativity,statements by some of Atwood's important transmitters, includingpublishers, editors, literary agents, and translators, and some 15statements by Atwood's fellow writers, in which they explore herimportance for them. A number of photographs of Atwood, several cartoonsdrawn by and about her, an up-to-date bibliography of works by and about her, and an index round out the volume.Reingard M. Nischik is Professor of American literature at the University of Constance, Germany

The novel that established margaret Atwood as a first-rate prose writer is awitty,diverting-though by no means frivolous-story of a young woman whose sane,structured,consumer-oriented world becomes less structured as she begins to identify with the things consumed.