Margaret Atwood is one of the most popular and enduring literary novelists of the late twentieth century. This introduction covers Atwood's work from the 1970s to the present, drawing out her recurring themes of Canadian identity and the wilderness, the representation of women and female bodies and history and its narration. Winner of the Margaret Atwood Society Best Book in 1997, the second edition is thoroughly revised and updated and includes four new chapters covering Atwood's recent novels Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin, her 2002 book on writing Negotiating with the Dead and her latest novel Oryx and Crake, published in 2003.