Margaret Atwood, the prophet of dystopia
““This is not a question of expect,” she said. “It is a question of hope. It is a question of faith rather than knowledge. You wouldn’t do it unless you thought there was a chance.” Humans, she said, “have hope built in,” adding, “If our ancestors had not had that component, they would not have bothered getting up in the morning. You are always going to have hope that today there will be a giraffe, where yesterday there wasn’t one.” At the same time, Atwood loves to entertain notions of how degraded our future might become, and what effect that might have on the human race. She speculates that, if our atmosphere becomes too carbon-heavy, with a dwindling in the oxygen supply, one of the first things that will happen is that we will become a lot less intelligent.”
I've been reading a lot of Atwood lately, mostly her novels, and I really enjoyed this profile. I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale yet, mostly because it's a bit too real and too much for me. But I love her work and this profile is a great way to get to know more about her.