Society of Young Nigerian Writers Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood, born in 1939, Canadian poet, novelist, and critic, whose works often feature women examining their relationships and society. Margaret Eleanor Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto in 1961 and a master’s degree from Radcliffe College in 1962. Atwood’s first book of poetry, Double Persephone, was published in 1961. She continued writing while teaching English literature at various universities in Canada from 1964 to 1972 and while acting as writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto in 1972 and 1973. Atwood’s first novel, The Edible Woman (1969), won international acclaim. Other novels followed: Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), and Life Before Man (1979). Objecting to the classification of some of her works as feminist, Atwood pointed out that she began dealing with themes such as growing up female in the 1950s and sex-role definitions before they were popularized by the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s (see Women’s Rights). Her novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985; motion picture, 1990) won a Governor General’s Literary Award, Canada’s highest literary honor, and was followed by Cat’s Eye (1988), The Robber Bride (1993), and Alias Grace (1996). The Handmaid’s Tale was turned into an opera by Danish composer Poul Ruders in 2000. Atwood’s books of poetry also won critical favor. The Circle Game (1966) won a Governor General’s Literary Award in 1966, and Power Politics (1971) and You Are Happy (1974) were also praised. Atwood’s critical works include Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), Second Words: Selected Critical Prose (1982), and Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature (1995). In addition, she edited The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English (1982) and The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English (1986). Her other works include Wilderness Tips (1991), a collection of short stories; Good Bones and Simple Murders (1994), a collection of prose sketches, updated fairy tales, and parodies; and Morning in the Burned House (1995), a collection of poetry. The body of Atwood’s work was awarded the Welsh Arts Council’s International Writer’s Prize in 1982. In 2000 Atwood won the prestigious Booker Prize for her novel The Blind Assassin (2000). The annual award is given to the best full-length novel written in the British Commonwealth. The novel tells the story of a woman who looks back on her life and the events surrounding her sister’s early death. Atwood looked toward the future in her next novel, Oryx and Crake (2003), and saw a bleak wasteland. The Penelopiad (2005) was a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey from the point of view of Odysseus’s wife, Penelope. Her collection of related short stories Moral Disorder (2006) follows a Canadian family over the course of 60 years. FRANCES MOORE BROOKE Frances Moore Brooke (1723?-1789), British novelist, playwright, and translator. She wrote what is generally considered the first Canadian novel, The History of Emily Montague (1769), a book set primarily in the colony of Québec in the 1760s. She was born Frances Moore in Claypole, Lincolnshire, England. When her father died in 1727, her mother moved the family to Peterborough, England. Brooke left home for London in the late 1740s. During the next decade she became part of the British literary and theatrical communities of her day. She married John Brooke, an Anglican minister, in the mid-1750s. From 1755 to 1756 she edited, under the pseudonym Mary Singleton, Spinster, the weekly journal The Old Maid, which covered theater, politics, and religion. In 1756 she published a number of poems and a play, Virginia. Her translation of a popular French novel by Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni appeared in 1760 under the English title Letters from Juliet Lady Catesby, to Her Friend Lady Henrietta Campley. In 1763 Brooke moved to the British colony of Québec, where her husband was a military chaplain. While in Québec she became a member of the elite social circle that surrounded the colony’s governor. She returned to England in 1768. Although Brooke wrote plays and exhibited a strong commitment to the theater throughout her life, her literary reputation largely rests on her work as a novelist. In keeping with the literary conventions of her day, she wrote novels of sentiment, a literary form characterized by moral instruction and an emphasis on emotions. However, she brought an aspect of realism to the form in her description of places and events. Her books were written as a series of letters, following a style that was popular in 18th- century European fiction. The first of Brooke’s novels, The History of Lady Julia Mandeville (1763), met with popular success at the time of its publication and was translated into French. It tells the story of an ill-fated love affair between Julia Mandeville and her cousin, Harry Mandeville. The story is recounted through letters, most of them authored by Harry or by the lovers’ friend Lady Anne Wilmot, another character in the novel. Brooke’s second novel, The History of Emily Montague, based on her experiences in Québec, consists of 228 letters dated in 1766 and 1767. Through these letters, the reader learns of the courtships of several couples and their ultimate achievement of happy marriages. In the midst of this conventional domestic plot, Brooke included observations on the customs and the political life of the colonists. The book was translated into Dutch and French and was well received by the British press. Canadian scholars have since found The History of Emily Montague of interest for its literary presentation and for its documentation of the landscape and social life of Québec in the 1760s. During the remainder of her life, Brooke translated two more French works, staged and published several dramas, and produced one more novel, The Excursion (1777). Morley Edward Callaghan Morley Edward Callaghan (1903-1990), Canadian writer, who sought to present truly Canadian characters in realistic situations. His first novel, Strange Fugitive (1928), and several of his later works examine problems faced by individuals who fail to conform to accepted social patterns. Particularly popular were They Shall Inherit the Earth (1935) and The Loved and the Lost (1955). A Fine and Private Place (1975) is the story of a writer who desires recognition in his own country. Callaghan's short stories—a collection of which was published in 1967—and his novels show a lean style, the legacy of his friendship with the American novelist Ernest Hemingway. Callaghan recounted this relationship in his memoir of the 1920s, That Summer In Paris (1963). At the age of 80, Callaghan wrote another novel, A Time for Judas (1984), a retelling of the story of Christ's betrayal. LEONARD COHEN Leonard Cohen, born in 1934, Canadian writer, singer-songwriter, and filmmaker, whose fiction and poetry, combined with his fame as a composer and singer, have made him among the best- known Canadians around the world. Cohen was born into a Jewish family in Montréal, Québec. His father, who ran a family clothing business, died when Cohen was nine. Cohen attended McGill University in Montréal, where he was influenced and encouraged by professors and noted poets Louis Dudek and F. R. Scott. After his graduation in 1955, he published his first book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), and he briefly attended graduate school at Columbia University in New York City. Subsequently, he traveled in Europe and decided to settle down on the Greek island of Hydra, where he lived and wrote for the next several years. After his return to North America he lived at various times in Nashville, Tennessee; New York City; Montréal; and Los Angeles, California. In 1961 Cohen published his second collection of poetry, The Spice-Box of Earth, which began his first period of popular and critical acclaim as a writer, both in Canada and abroad. Soon after, his first novel, The Favourite Game (1963), appeared, followed by another collection of poems, Flowers for Hitler (1964), and the novel Beautiful Losers (1966). These books represent the diversity of Cohen’s artistic vision, demonstrating his ability to write convincingly of romantic love and spiritual despair. His stories of saintly self-denial found a wide audience among the youth of the 1960s. In the mid-1960s Cohen turned to songwriting, and he saw his brooding folk ballads turned into hit recordings by performers such as Judy Collins. He began performing the songs himself, and in 1968 he released his first record, Songs of Leonard Cohen, which featured his signature song, “Suzanne.” In that same year his Selected Poems (1968) was chosen for the Governor General’s Literary Award, which he declined. Cohen published several more books of poetry, including the experimental and fragmentary poems of The Energy of Slaves (1972). His 1984 collection, Book of Mercy, marked his return to spiritual themes. During the 1970s he focused primarily on his musical career, finding success with the records Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971), and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His recordings of the late 1970s, Death of a Ladies’ Man (1977) and Recent Songs (1979) received less popular and critical attention. ROBERTSON DAVIES Robertson Davies (1913-1995), Canadian novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for three trilogies about Canadian life that are distinguished by their firm moral sense, narrative strength, and elegant use of myth, reality, and illusion. Davies uses a variety of approaches—including comedy, satire, myth, coming-of-age fiction, allegory, and historical romance—to depict Canadian subjects.