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Two Solicitudes: Conversations
Two of the leading figures in English-Canadian and French-Canadian literature discuss their work, the country, and much else.
264 pages, Paperback
First published May 23, 1996
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About the author
Margaret Atwood
663 books89.3k followersMargaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.
Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 30, 2019
This was a magical, intimate book, one that I never knew existed before a few weeks ago, stumbling upon it at a used bookstore.
A French radio series existed once upon a time, between Atwood and Beaulieu, and some saint translated it to English and transcribed it. These conversations gathered intimate details upon the lives of both writers, their political differences, and also existence living within and out of Quebec.
Canadian literature is a tricky concept for Canadians and others. It’s a flimsy structure barely visible underneath bulky European literature and the American Dream, each a wildly diverse collection of writing. For Canadians, it’s hard finding identifiers to their culture and landscape.
Thankfully, we’ve got two literary masterminds who managed to break ground, adding a complex layer to Canadian Literature, with roots to events like the Great Depression and post war years.
I didn’t know much of Victor Lévy but learned massive amounts of rural Quebec lifestyles, radio script writing, and the general drive to write for a living through his accounts.
A huge recommendation for any curious about either of these two writers, or a detailed look into complex Canadian societies.
A French radio series existed once upon a time, between Atwood and Beaulieu, and some saint translated it to English and transcribed it. These conversations gathered intimate details upon the lives of both writers, their political differences, and also existence living within and out of Quebec.
Canadian literature is a tricky concept for Canadians and others. It’s a flimsy structure barely visible underneath bulky European literature and the American Dream, each a wildly diverse collection of writing. For Canadians, it’s hard finding identifiers to their culture and landscape.
Thankfully, we’ve got two literary masterminds who managed to break ground, adding a complex layer to Canadian Literature, with roots to events like the Great Depression and post war years.
I didn’t know much of Victor Lévy but learned massive amounts of rural Quebec lifestyles, radio script writing, and the general drive to write for a living through his accounts.
A huge recommendation for any curious about either of these two writers, or a detailed look into complex Canadian societies.
July 30, 2024
This pleasant but innocuous book is comprised of the transcripts of two sets of interviews presented on Radio-Canada in 1995. In the first group, Victor-Levy Beaulieu (VLB) interviews Margaret Atwood about her life and works. In the second, Margaret Atwood puts the questions to VLB. Both authors are extremely cordial.
VLB appears to understand Atwood's work better than she does his. However, it is hard to say if anyone truly understands VLB's highly scatological and scatter-gun texts.
Atwood attempts to convince VLB on two issues that oth French and English Canadian literature are dominated by the theme of survival. VLB concedes that Atwood's thesis has some basis. VLB's questions however suggest that he believes Atwood's work to be essentially about the relations between men and women in the age of female emancipation.
VLB that the dominance of the Catholic Church prior to the "Révolution tranquille" gave the literature of Quebec a sexually nature. Atwood responds by saying that sexual repression existed also in Protestant Ontario.
Much as I liked the idea of a dialogue between a major Anglophone Canadian writer and a Francophone writer, the final result was trivial.
VLB appears to understand Atwood's work better than she does his. However, it is hard to say if anyone truly understands VLB's highly scatological and scatter-gun texts.
Atwood attempts to convince VLB on two issues that oth French and English Canadian literature are dominated by the theme of survival. VLB concedes that Atwood's thesis has some basis. VLB's questions however suggest that he believes Atwood's work to be essentially about the relations between men and women in the age of female emancipation.
VLB that the dominance of the Catholic Church prior to the "Révolution tranquille" gave the literature of Quebec a sexually nature. Atwood responds by saying that sexual repression existed also in Protestant Ontario.
Much as I liked the idea of a dialogue between a major Anglophone Canadian writer and a Francophone writer, the final result was trivial.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews