Moving Targets: Writing with Intent 1982–2004

The most precious treasure of this collection is that it gives us the rich back-story and diverse range of influences on Margaret Atwood’s work. From the aunts who encouraged her nascent writing career to the influence of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four on The Handmaid’s Tale, we trace the movement of Atwood’s fertile and curious mind in action over the years. Atwood’s controversial political pieces, “Napoleon’s Two Biggest Mistakes” and “Letter to America” — both not-so-veiled warnings about the repercussions of the war in Iraq — also appear, alongside pieces that exhibit her active concern for the environment, the North, and the future of the human race. Atwood also writes about her peers: John Updike, Marina Warner, Italo Calvino, Marian Engel, Toni Morrison, Angela Carter, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mordecai Richler, Elmore Leonard, and Ursula Le Guin. This is a landmark volume from a major writer whose worldwide readership is in the millions, and whose work has influenced and entertained generations. Moving Targets is also the companion volume to the recently reissued Second Words.