Words At Large

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Margaret Atwood is one of the world's pre-eminent writers, having won the Booker Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Governor General's Literary Award, among many other honours. The literary giant has earned the title Queen of CanLit.

Atwood has always had a strong political voice but during this election she's made headlines, railing against the cuts to culture funding in Canada. Her new book of 2008 Massey Lectures, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (House of Anansi), goes further than ever in tackling politics head-on. She examines the broad social implications of debt and our attitude towards it. As she puts it in the book, “what we owe and how we pay is a feature of all human societies, and profoundly shapes our shared values and our cultures.”

In this feature interview from The Next Chapter, host Shelagh Rogers asks Margaret Atwood why now is the time to think about the debts we owe, in every sense of the word.

There’s more in the podcast of the show, including an interview with Shyam Selvadurai, author of Cinnamon Gardens (McClelland & Stewart), about how reading Margaret Atwood’s work changed his life.

First aired October 11, 2008 on The Next Chapter. [runs 26:42]

Catch The Next Chapter on Saturdays at 3 p.m. EST (3:30 NT) on CBC Radio One, or listen online.

Margaret Atwood’s 2008 Massey Lectures will be broadcast on Ideas November 10 to 14.

Coming up
Calling all writers: The 2008 CBC Literary Awards competition is open for submissions in poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction. Entries must be received by November 1, 2008. Go to the official site for details.