MARGARET ATWOOD’s books have been published in more than thirty-five countries. Her novels The Handmaid’s Tale and Cat’s Eye were shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Blind Assassin was awarded the Booker Prize in 2000; Alias Grace won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; her most recent novel, Oryx and Crak,e was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Orange Prize. Atwood was the 2005 recipient of the Edinburgh International Book Festival Enlightenment Award, a unique accolade to mark a distinguished contribution to world literature and thought. She lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Margaret Atwood is one of the world’s most esteemed authors, a writer of wide range—novels, stories, essays, criticism. She now brings readers a collection of smart and entertaining fictional essays punctuated with her own wonderful illustrations. Chilling and witty, these highly imaginative, Atwoodian pieces speak on a broad range of subjects, reflecting the times we live in with deadly accuracy and knife-edge precision.

Herein Atwood gives a sly pep talk to the ambitious young; writes about the disconcerting experience of looking at old photos of ourselves; gives us Horatio's real views on Hamlet; and examines the boons and banes of orphanhood. “Bring Back Mom: An Invocation” explores what life was really like for the “perfect” homemakers of days gone by, and in “The Animals Reject Their Names,” she runs history backward, with surprising results.

Prescient and personal, delectable and tart, The Tent is vintage Atwood.