Christine Roberts
asked
Margaret Atwood:
"The Handmaid's Tale" is one of my all-time favorite books, and I was wondering- where do you come up with the inspiration for all the dystopian fiction you write?
Margaret Atwood
Hello Christine… Mostly from reading the papers, and magazines, and surfing around on the net, but also from extensive reading in 19thC and 20thC utopian and dystopian fiction. I look at developments and ways of thinking, and wonder what those ideas and products might be like if pushed just a little farther. See also "In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination," a book I wrote about these matters. (I grew up un the 40s - many dictators around! - which was also a big era for SF in magazines and comics.)
More Answered Questions
A Goodreads user
asked
Margaret Atwood:
Do you think Suzanne Collins might have been inspired by your work while she was writing the Hunger Games?
Danny Miller
asked
Margaret Atwood:
Margaret, To take just two of your Dystopian worlds--that of The Handmaid's Tale and that of the MaddAddam trilogy--each holds a place of exile, whether it's the Pleeblands or the Colonies. Do you think this (perhaps post-colonialist) trait is necessary for Dystopian fiction? What other traits are? A caste-system, surely, but what are less obvious elements that you think make up a Dystopian society?
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