Margaret Atwood: An Introduction to Critical Views of Her Fiction

GINA WISKER Professor of Higher Education and Contemporary Literature, and Head of the Centre for Learning and Teaching, at the University of Brighton, UK. She is the author of Margaret Atwood's 'Alias Grace': A Reader's Guide (2002, Continuum) and has written a number of books for Palgrave, including Black Women's Writing (1992), Postcolonial and African American Women's Writing (2000), and the highly successful The Postgraduate Research Handbook (2001).

Margaret Atwood is an internationally renowned, highly versatile author whose work creatively explores what it means to be human through genres ranging from feminist fable to science fiction and Gothic romance.

In this timely new study, Gina Wisker reassesses Atwood's entire fictional output to date, providing both original analysis and a lively overview of the criticism surrounding her work. 'Margaret Atwood: An Introduction to Critical Views of Her Fiction':
- covers all of Atwood's novels as well as her short stories
- surveys the critical reception of her fiction and the fascinating debates developed by key Atwood critics
- explores the main approaches to reading Atwood's work and examines issues such as her interventions in genre writing and ecology, as well as her feminism, post-feminism and narrative usage, both conventional and experimental.

Concise and approachable, this is an ideal volume for anyone studying the fiction of this major contemporary writer.

A new introductory guide to Margaret Atwood which re-scrutinises her fictional work to date and provides both an overview of key secondary criticism and original analysis for anyone studying her work

List of Abbreviations.- Acknowledgements.- Introduction.- The Quest for Identity: Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), Surfacing (1972).- Constraining the Feminine: The Edible Woman (1969), Lady Oracle (1976).- Explorations, Bones and Murders: The Short Stories (1977-94).- Violence and Trauma: Life Before Man (1979), Bodily Harm (1981).- The Oppressive Future: The Handmaid's Tale (1985).- Feminist Gothic: Cat's Eye (1988), The Robber Bride (1993).- No Nearer the Truth Versions of Fictionalising: Alias Grace (1996) .- Rewriting History and Myth: The Blind Assassin (2000), The Penelopiad (2005).- Writers, Readers, Constructions of the Real and the Future: Oryx and Crake (2003).- Re-telling Old Tales: Moral Disorder (2006), The Tent (2006).- The End of the World?: The Year of the Flood (2009).- Conclusion.- Notes.- Bibliography.- Index.