The Robber Bride Margaret Atwood 1993

Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939 and spent much of her early life in northern Ontario and Quebec. She is Canada’s most eminent novelist and poet and has published more than thirty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye and Alias Grace, all of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize and The Blind Assassin, which won the 2000 Booker Prize. Her work has been translated into thirty-three languages and she is the recipient of many literary awards and honours, including the Sunday Times Author of the Year in 1993 and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction.

Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with the writer Graeme Gibson.

A rattlesnake that doesn’t bite teaches you nothing.

—Jessamyn West

Only what is entirely lost demands to be endlessly named: there is a mania to call the lost thing until it returns.

—Günter Grass

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

—Oscar Wilde