Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity

摘要

In her earlier book on Canadian literary celebrity, Literary Celebrity in Canada, Lorraine York (2007) heads her chapter on Margaret Atwood with a comment Atwood made in 1973: "I've been described as the Barbra Streisand of Can Lit... But I think of myself more as the Mary Pickford, spreading joy" (99). As York mentions, Atwood's observation is both wry and self-aware. Mary Pickford, a Canadian actress who eventually became a Hollywood starlet during the silent era, made the transition from the margins of her profession, far from the engines of international celebrity, to a central role as a prominent film producer, public benefactress, and founder of the United Artists film studio. Near the begirining of her own illustrious career, when she herself was becoming a celebrity author, Atwood's pithy comment provides ample evidence of her awareness that her own career trajectory had much in common with Pickford's. In Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity, Lorraine York examines Atwood's acute awareness of the potential and the dangers of celebrity-and the rewards of managing it wisely.