Old Babes in the Wood: Stories - Paperback

by Margaret Atwood (Author)

A dazzling collection of fifteen short stories from Margaret Atwood, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments.

Margaret Atwood has established herself as a beloved cultural icon and one of the most visionary and canonical authors of her generation. In this collection comprised of fifteen extraordinary stories--some of which have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine--Atwood speaks to our times with her characteristic wit and intellect.

Of special significance are the seven works revolving around the long-term married couple Tig and Nell. Acting as bookends for the collection, these stories look deeply in the heart of what it means to spend a life together, with the four stories in Part I relating tales from their married life, and the three stories at the end showing Nell's reality in the aftermath of Tig's death.

In other works, two sisters grapple with loss and memory in "Old Babes in the Wood"; "Impatient Griselda" reprises the folkloric role of Griselda in Bocaccio's The Decameron, exploring alienation and miscommunication; and "Evil Mother" touching on the fantastical, examining a mother-daughter relationship in which the mother purports to be a witch.

Returning to short fiction for the first time since her 2014 collection, Stone Mattress, Atwood's storytelling gifts and unmistakable style are on full display.

Author Biography

MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat's Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator's Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.