Atwood baffled by renaissance
TORONTO — Margaret Atwood is going through a career renaissance that has her baffled.
“Very weird. It’s what we call ‘a moment,’” said the 77-yearold Ottawa native, who has written more than 40 books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays.
“It must be the astrology. I can’t account for it. I think a lot of things just converged and I don’t know why it all happened in one year.”
The internationally acclaimed Toronto author has been the talk of the international TV world lately with several upcoming adaptations of her work.
There’s Wandering Wenda, based on her alliteration-filled children’s series, premiering April 29 on CBC.
The Handmaid’s Tale, adapted from her 1985 Governor General’s Award-winning dystopian novel, debuts April 26 on the U.S. streaming service Hulu and April 30 on Bravo in Canada. It will later streame on CraveTV.
Her 1996 Scotiabank Giller Prizewinning historical tale Alias Grace is also due in miniseries form this fall on CBC in Canada and Netflix elsewhere. And MGM Television has acquired the rights to adapt her 2015 novel The Heart Goes Last.
“There’s yet another one yet to come, which has not been announced, so I can’t tell you about that,” Atwood said in a recent interview. “A lot of the stars have aligned.” While Atwood didn’t create all of these screen projects, she has been involved, either as a consultant or as an executive producer.
On Alias Grace, Oscar-nominated writer and producer Sarah Polley said she checked in with Atwood every step of the way and had her on set for a cameo role. Sarah Gadon stars as Grace Marks, a young Irish immigrant and maid convicted of murder in Upper Canada in 1843. She was exonerated after about 30 years behind bars.
Atwood said she also spent “a good deal of time” discussing the concepts for the TV adaptation of
The Handmaid’s Tale with creator Bruce Miller. The story is set in a male-dominated, totalitarian society ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state. Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men fame stars as Offred, who is torn from her daughter and enslaved by her male owner.
The Handmaid’s Tale is grabbing much attention these days, with some saying it seems eerily prescient in the Trump era.
“I didn’t put anything into the book that hadn’t already happened then,” countered Atwood, noting she wrote the book in 1984. It was published a year later.
Atwood, who recently received a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle, is no stranger to the screen world: There is a 1990 film adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale and a 1981 version of her novel Surfacing.
Early in her career she also wrote screenplays, including one for her first novel, 1969’s The Edible
Woman, which never got made. Atwood offers one explanation for all this new interest around her books.
“The appearance of the streamed episodic television series has really expanded the possibilities for a lot of novelists,” she said. “It’s created a whole other way of telling stories, in filmic form.”