The author of The Handmaids Tale discusses the writing life and the role of the writer in society, making reference to many other writers, alive and dead, ranging from Dante to Elmore Leonard, to make her case. Reprint. 40,000 first printing. The author offers a feminine perspective on writing in a collection of essays that examines her development as a poet and bestselling novelist, and includes references to the works of Virgil, Isak Dinesen, and Robertson Davies. Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain their activities, looking at what costumes they have seen fit to assume, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the books title: if a writer is to be seen as gifted, who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift?
