About the Author

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.
 
Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Reviews

“[Written with] energy, inventiveness, and narrative panache. . . . A gripping and visceral book that showcases [Atwood’s] pure storytelling talents.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“[The Year of the Flood] shows the Nobel Prize-worthy Atwood . . . at the pinnacle of her prodigious creative powers.” —Elle
 
“A heart-pounding thriller.” —The Washington Post Book World
 
“Leave it to Atwood to find humor in a post-apocalyptic world as she covertly, and brilliantly, addresses questions of how we need to live on an imperiled planet.” —Kansas City Star

“Atwood is funny and clever, such a good writer and real thinker. . . . The Year of the Flood isn’t prophecy, but it is eerily possible.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Timely and gripping. . . . Atwood tells a good story, one filled with suspense and even levity.” —USA Today
 
“Enthralling. . . . Memorable characters, a tightly controlled pace and shockingly plausible scenes make it fly—to a mysterious, skin-prickling ending.” —San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Atwood renders this civilization and these two lives within it with tenderness and insight, a healthy dread, and a guarded humor.” —O, the Oprah Magazine
 
“Atwood spins the most arresting alternate mythologies to our hell-bent world. . . . The Year of the Flood is a slap-happy romp through the end times. Stuffed with cornball hymns, genetic mutations worth of Thomas Pynchon and a pharmaceutical company run amok, it reads like dystopia verging on satire. She may be imagining a world in flames, but she’s doing it with a dark cackle.” —The Los Angeles Times
 
“Thought-provoking, beautifully constructed, and rich with the imaginative flourishes for which [Atwood] is rightly famous. . . . A hugely entertaining and satisfying read.” —The Irish Independent
 
“Prodigiously imaginative and outrageously funny. . . . Atwood’s wit is biting. . . . Her brilliance dazzles.” —The Plain Dealer
 
“Heart-pounding, mysterious and surprisingly touching. . . . She enchants us so convincingly that after her spell is over, the ‘real’ world seems temporarily transformed. The Year of the Flood is both a warning and a gift.” —Jane Ciabattari, “Books We Like,” NPR.org
 
“Atwood is a wry wizard at world-building. . . . Fans . . . should grab a biohazard suit, crawl into a hermetically sealed fallout shelter, and dive right in.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Funny. . . . Entertaining. . . . You fall into her intensely inventive world and find yourself carried happily along.” —Anthony Doerr, Orion Magazine

“Atwood scores a 10.” —Philadelphia Inquirer
 
“Atwood's latest is a fiercely imagined tale of suffering that rivals Job’s. . . . As dark as Atwood's vision may be, the bonds among her women give her work a bittersweet power.” —People
 
“Richly imagined. . . . Thought-provoking, unexpectedly funny and utterly original.” —The Denver Post
 
“Engrossing and suspenseful.” —The New York Review of Books
 
“Riveting. . . . Cunning, droll. . . . The intensity of her apocalyptic fantasy doesn’t prevent Atwood from giving free rein to her peppery and inventive humor. . . . So she courts us with her puckish wit, holds us spellbound with suspense, and then confronts us with harrowing and tragic scenarios.” —The Kansas City Star
 
“Atwood’s language remains as juicy and colorful as ever. . . . [She] allows her imagination to roam rudely, widely, and vigorously where lesser minds fear to tread.” —Barnes & Noble Review
 
“Vintage Atwood: It’s artfully edgy, casting a pitiless eye on her fellow creatures. . . . A powerful indictment of the way human beings have long treated the planet and themselves. . . . The book takes big risks.” —Chicago Tribune


“Mesmerizing. . . . Flood's relentlessly fabulous inventions and despondent predictions become almost unbearable, especially told in such gorgeously trenchant prose. In this way, the book recalls Atwood’s 1985 masterpiece, The Handmaid's Tale.” —Time Out New York (five out of five stars)

“Atwood unflinchingly holds aloft the sanctity of life—for all species—and the human quest for love.”  —Chicago Sun-Times

“With Atwood’s characteristic brainy humor. . . . The Year of the Flood consistently does what one expects of any work by Margaret Atwood: It entertains, spins out suspense and rewards a reader's basic impulse, all the while subtly and expertly maintaining its literary respectability.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[An] entertaining, often mesmerizing, consciousness-raising novel. . . . This is a work that amuses, informs, enlightens and, remarkably, also challenges its readers to be better persons.” —San Antonio Express-News
 
“[Atwood] is emerging as literature’s queen of the apocalypse. . . . Fine. . . . Illuminating. . . . Gripping and scary, provocative and quite humorous.” —Associated Press
 
“A marvelously absorbing novel. . . . Vivid and remarkably drawn.” —The A. V. Club
 
“[With] Atwood’s trademark wit and clarity of vision.” —The Dallas Morning News
 
“Atwood's mischievous, suspenseful, and sagacious dystopian novel follows the trajectory of current environmental debacles to a shattering possible conclusion with passionate concern and arch humor.” —Booklist, starred review

In her 2002 speculative novel, Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood depicted a dystopic planet tumbling toward apocalypse. The world she envisaged was in the throes of catastrophic climate change, its wealthy inhabitants dwelling in sterile secure compounds, its poor ones in the dangerous "pleeblands" of decaying inner cities. Mass extinctions had taken place, while genetic experiments had populated the planet with strange new breeds of animal: liobams, Mo'Hairs, rakunks. At the end of the book, we left its central character, Jimmy, in the aftermath of a devastating man-made plague, as he wondered whether to befriend or attack a ragged band of strangers. The novel seemed complete, closing on a moment of suspense, as though Atwood was content simply to hint at the direction life would now take. In her profoundly imagined new book, The Year of the Flood, she revisits that same world and its catastrophe. Like Oryx and Crake, Year of the Flood begins just after the catastrophe and then tracks back in time over the corrupt and degenerate world that preceded it. But while the first novel focused on the privileged elite in the compounds and the morally bankrupt corporations, The Year of the Flood depicts more of the world of the pleebs, an edgy no-man's land inhabited by criminals, sex workers, dropouts and the few individuals who are trying to resist the grip of the corporations. The novel centers on the lives of Ren and Toby, female members of a fundamentalist sect of Christian environmentalists, the God's Gardeners. Led by the charismatic Adam One, whose sermons and eco-hymns punctuate the narrative, the God's Gardeners are preparing for life after the prophesied Waterless Flood. Atwood plays some of their religion for laughs: their hymns have a comically bouncing, churchy rhythm, and we learn that both Ren and Toby have been drawn toward the sect for nonreligious reasons. Yet the gentleness and benignity of the Gardeners is a source of hope as well as humor. As absurd as some of their beliefs appear, Atwood seems to be suggesting that they're a better option than the naked materialism of the corporations. This is a gutsy and expansive novel, rich with ideas and conceits, but overall it's more optimistic than Oryx and Crake. Its characters have a compassion and energy lacking in Jimmy, the wounded and floating lothario at the previous novel's center. Each novel can be enjoyed independently of the other, but what's perhaps most impressive is the degree of connection between them. Together, they form halves of a single epic. Characters intersect. Plots overlap. Even the tiniest details tessellate into an intricate whole. In the final pages, we catch up with Jimmy once more, as he waits to encounter the strangers. This time around, Atwood commits herself to a dramatic and hopeful denouement that's in keeping with this novel's spirit of redemption. Marcel Theroux's most recent novel, Far North, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in June. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

"[Written with] energy, inventiveness, and narrative panache. . . . A gripping and visceral book that showcases [Atwood's] pure storytelling talents." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"[The Year of the Flood] shows the Nobel Prize-worthy Atwood . . . at the pinnacle of her prodigious creative powers." -Elle

"A heart-pounding thriller." -The Washington Post Book World

"Leave it to Atwood to find humor in a post-apocalyptic world as she covertly, and brilliantly, addresses questions of how we need to live on an imperiled planet." -Kansas City Star

"Atwood is funny and clever, such a good writer and real thinker. . . . The Year of the Flood isn't prophecy, but it is eerily possible." -The New York Times Book Review

"Timely and gripping. . . . Atwood tells a good story, one filled with suspense and even levity." -USA Today

"Enthralling. . . . Memorable characters, a tightly controlled pace and shockingly plausible scenes make it fly-to a mysterious, skin-prickling ending." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Atwood renders this civilization and these two lives within it with tenderness and insight, a healthy dread, and a guarded humor." -O, the Oprah Magazine

"Atwood spins the most arresting alternate mythologies to our hell-bent world. . . . The Year of the Flood is a slap-happy romp through the end times. Stuffed with cornball hymns, genetic mutations worth of Thomas Pynchon and a pharmaceutical company run amok, it reads like dystopia verging on satire. She may be imagining a world in flames, but she's doing it with a dark cackle." -The Los Angeles Times

"Thought-provoking, beautifully constructed, and rich with the imaginative flourishes for which [Atwood] is rightly famous. . . . A hugely entertaining and satisfying read." -The Irish Independent

"Prodigiously imaginative and outrageously funny. . . . Atwood's wit is biting. . . . Her brilliance dazzles." -The Plain Dealer

"Heart-pounding, mysterious and surprisingly touching. . . . She enchants us so convincingly that after her spell is over, the 'real' world seems temporarily transformed. The Year of the Flood is both a warning and a gift." -Jane Ciabattari, "Books We Like," NPR.org

"Atwood is a wry wizard at world-building. . . . Fans . . . should grab a biohazard suit, crawl into a hermetically sealed fallout shelter, and dive right in." -The Christian Science Monitor

"Funny. . . . Entertaining. . . . You fall into her intensely inventive world and find yourself carried happily along." -Anthony Doerr, Orion Magazine

"Atwood scores a 10." -Philadelphia Inquirer

"Atwood's latest is a fiercely imagined tale of suffering that rivals Job's. . . . As dark as Atwood's vision may be, the bonds among her women give her work a bittersweet power." -People

"Richly imagined. . . . Thought-provoking, unexpectedly funny and utterly original." -The Denver Post

"Engrossing and suspenseful." -The New York Review of Books

"Riveting. . . . Cunning, droll. . . . The intensity of her apocalyptic fantasy doesn't prevent Atwood from giving free rein to her peppery and inventive humor. . . . So she courts us with her puckish wit, holds us spellbound with suspense, and then confronts us with harrowing and tragic scenarios." -The Kansas City Star

"Atwood's language remains as juicy and colorful as ever. . . . [She] allows her imagination to roam rudely, widely, and vigorously where lesser minds fear to tread." -Barnes & Noble Review

"Vintage Atwood: It's artfully edgy, casting a pitiless eye on her fellow creatures. . . . A powerful indictment of the way human beings have long treated the planet and themselves. . . . The book takes big risks." -Chicago Tribune


"Mesmerizing. . . . Flood's relentlessly fabulous inventions and despondent predictions become almost unbearable, especially told in such gorgeously trenchant prose. In this way, the book recalls Atwood's 1985 masterpiece, The Handmaid's Tale." -Time Out New York (five out of five stars)

"Atwood unflinchingly holds aloft the sanctity of life-for all species-and the human quest for love." -Chicago Sun-Times

"With Atwood's characteristic brainy humor. . . . The Year of the Flood consistently does what one expects of any work by Margaret Atwood: It entertains, spins out suspense and rewards a reader's basic impulse, all the while subtly and expertly maintaining its literary respectability." -Minneapolis Star Tribune

"[An] entertaining, often mesmerizing, consciousness-raising novel. . . . This is a work that amuses, informs, enlightens and, remarkably, also challenges its readers to be better persons." -San Antonio Express-News

"[Atwood] is emerging as literature's queen of the apocalypse. . . . Fine. . . . Illuminating. . . . Gripping and scary, provocative and quite humorous." -Associated Press

"A marvelously absorbing novel. . . . Vivid and remarkably drawn." -The A. V. Club

"[With] Atwood's trademark wit and clarity of vision." -The Dallas Morning News

"Atwood's mischievous, suspenseful, and sagacious dystopian novel follows the trajectory of current environmental debacles to a shattering possible conclusion with passionate concern and arch humor." -Booklist, starred review