MARGARET ATWOOD

I like so many women authors. How is it possible to choose? Different authors for different things - one for escaping, one for thinking, one for existing in another time or place. If I had to choose one that manages to satisfy on all three counts, I would have to choose Margaret Atwood.

How can you put a finger on what makes you like something? Margaret Atwood understands two things important in a novel - she understands how to use language to its fullest extent; she also understands what it is to be human. She mixes the two things well.

She takes you on a journey. It’s not just about reading a story. It forces you to think about yourself, your own life, the lives of other people. Some of her stories are horrific, but then you get to thinking that somewhere someone could be living that horror. Some of her stories explore the bizarre. They open up to inspection how our minds work - how we internalise and externalise experience. She also spins a good yarn! So it can be just about reading a story.

Someone once said that music can exist on more than one level - it can be like wall-paper: there to look at while you do the washing-up; or it can be something deeper, something that challenges the way you think. I think novels are the same. I think Margaret Atwood understands that. That’s why she is one of my favourite women authors.

© 1999 J R Hargreaves