most famously, her 1985 novel, the handmaid's tale, a dystopian vision of america, in which women are enslaved, now an emmy award—winning television series. there's an eye in your house. in this episode of this cultural life, the radio 4 programme, she reveals her formative influences and experiences, and how, even in high school, her creativity was clear. i put on a home economics opera. it was about fabrics. can you remember how it goes? # fabrics need a swim in the suds. # it makes them feel just like new. # plink—plink, plink—plink. laughter.

i want to make sure the mics are recording us. margaret atwood, welcome to this cultural life. thank you very much. happy to be here. on this programme, i ask my guests to choose the most significant influences and experiences that have shaped their own creativity, and your first choice is your parents. yes. tell me about your parents. well, first of all, they, um, were very innovative and able to improvise, because, of course, if you live in the woods and there aren't any shops, you have to be, and they were both very outdoorsy. but they also allowed us to make messes in our rooms and didn't make us clean them up. by messes, i mean projects, which always begin as messes. just to set the scene, this is rural quebec,

because your father was an entomologist. he was studying... oh, yes. he was a forest entomologist. and his research station spring, summer and fall, was up in the woods north, north, north, north, north of ottawa, up the ottawa river. and this would be in a house that he built himself because he was of a rural background and knew how to do all of that, and, um, therefore, he had a lot of edged tools, which we used to play with as children. edged tools? yeah. sharp—edged tools? yes. you know, and other things, like hammers. things that you could do yourself a serious injury with, if you weren't careful with them. and your mother was a scientist, as well? she was a dietician. so this would have been the �*30s and �*40s. so i think she was a dietician, simply because it was a job you could get in the depression. she wasn't very interested in any of that, frankly. so, this was a really rural upbringing you had, for most of...?

rural makes us think of farms. right. we're not talking farms. more remote than that? we're talking wolves. actually, we're more likely to be talking bears, cos you would be more likely to see a bear. did you? oh, yes. and you heard the wolves? yes. what does that do for your creative imagination? well, you just know they're there. it gives you respect, and you don't send very small children out into the woods by themselves, because they're bite—sized. so you had to be on your guard. you had to be aware there was danger...? respectful. you had to be respectful. did that make you a tough kid? er, tough is relative. so tough in relation to that kind of thing, yes. um, tough in relation to... well, for instance, what was frightening to me as a small child, flush toilets. things went down them

and never came back. you didn't know where they went! so itjust depends what you're used to, doesn't it? and, er, what you take, what you take for granted. so cities are actually a lot less safe. you're hit by a car at any moment. um... so, out in the woods, as long as you're respectful and always look behind to see where you've just been, then you won't get lost. i mean, my big fear would be a bear, but you're still your mother allowed you to be messy at home, creating projects, so, what were you making? you were a practical child? usually i was either constructing something out of materials such as papier mache, or i was painting. hmm. or i was sewing, one or the other. sewing is not so messy. the papier mache is quite messy. so, craft work, then? oh, we didn't call it that, dear. that's a new—fangled term. did you call it anything,

or was itjust the stuff...? making stuff. yeah. and we had the full...the full run of the tool set, you know. that was very handy. a few years later, when you self—published your first book... yes. a book of poetry, double persephone, um... a very limited run, and i think you made... you hand—printed and set... typeset... yeah. it was a flatbed press, so you had to set each page. and the fonts were a bit limited, and we had to, um...set the poem, run it through and then disassemble it and do the next one. and i did the cover with a lino block print. mmm. do you have one of these books? yes, but i should have kept more. that's a real serious margaret atwood rarity now, isn't it? your next choice for this cultural life is your brother's novels, which he wrote between the ages of seven and nine, you told us. so, so what were these stories? he was very prolific. yeah. he even had, in the inside of one of the covers, "by the same author",

and then he put the other books he had written. oh, yes, they were adventure stories, and illustrated. and at the beginning, they all concerned his imaginary world, which was at war constantly, because, of course, it was the war. hmm. and, um...we traded our coloured pencils. he traded me the pink, the silver and the gold, useful for princesses, and i traded him the red, the orange and the yellow, useful for explosions. hmm. there were a lot of explosions in his books. hmm. so, these were...his books with his name on them. oh, yes. were you contributing, as well? were you a co—author? no, i was not a co—author. i'd made some rather wimpy, er...kind of not nearly as violent and kind of smiley books of my own. really? i was almost three years younger, so they're much more rudimentary. it doesn't sound like you at all. well, you know, i became... i matured as an author. so, i did write my first full novel at about seven, and it was about an ant. it was a good lesson, because it's sort of how not to do it. ants don't do much for the first three—quarters of their lives, so it was quite inert at the beginning. i wouldn't suggest this

as a way to open a story. hmm. eggs do nothing. oh, that comes much later. i don't think you're thinking in that way at all when you're seven. no. when i entered what we would call high school, they gave you a book called guidance. we had it in class, called guidance, which was supposed to be guiding us to our future, um...careers. hmm. so there were lots of future careers for boys. so doctors, lawyers, you know, rocket scientists and what have you. and there were five for girls. let's see if you can guess what they were. secretary? yes. nurse? yes. teacher? yes. got it. ok, that's three. that's three. er...i don't know, was it housewife? did that count? that's not a career.

that was not considered a career! er...yes, but domestic science. 0k. otherwise known as home economics. home economics. right. and the fifth one, which is a bit surprising that early, it was...it was airline stewardess. oh, right, of course. so, which box did were you ticking at that age? well, i was a mercenary little child. the one that made the most money at that time was.... ..was the home economist. ah, right. so although i was not really very interested, um... i took that in high school instead of what i should have taken, which was secretarial sciences. i should have taken typing. what was the result? i still cannot touch—type. i have to look. are you...are you two fingers? was there...was there a moment, though, where you suddenly thought, "actually, i need to write?" oh, yes.

that would be when i was 16. er... yes, i started writing at that time more than i had been. we had to write a certain amount in school anyway. we had to write essays. mm. and in those days, we had to read quite long novels in school. so thomas hardy was a feature. laughter. we had a shakespeare play a year, and, um...that was of great use in later life. but, particularly, we had a dramatic group would come to the school, called the earl grey players. and they would put on plays that were in the curriculum. you were doing a bit of acting as well, then? oh, i was doing some acting, because it was the age of skits. people did a lot of skits. so what i eventually did with home economics was i put on a home economics opera. what?! how does that play out...? well, it played out like this. the well—meaning, but rather humourless, um... home economics teacher made the mistake of letting us vote on a special project. hmm. this is the downside

of democracy. so we could vote on it. and she wanted us to vote on making stuffed animals for sick children in hospitals. a very worthy project, but i felt, why not just buy them? i knew about those curved seams. i wanted to have nothing to do with them. er...we�*d already done smocking, that was enough of that. so i subverted part of the class and got them to vote on the home economics opera. she was a little bit dismayed by that, but because it was a vote, she said, yes, we could do it, as long as it was on a home economics subject. so it was. it was about fabrics. orlon, nylon and dacron were their names. who was writing the songs? er. . . me. i used pre—existing melodies so people would actually be able to sing them. operatic melodies or pop songs? no, dear, just any old melodies i could get my hands on. one of them was a... oh, a mangling of the barcarolle from tales of

hoffmann. hmm. it was about washing. right. can you remember how it goes? # fabrics need a swim in the suds. # it makes them feel just like new. # plink—plink, plink—plink. it goes on from there. so, did you perform, as well? yes, of course. yeah? you were...? yes, i played orlon. 0k. yes, i performed, i directed. hmm. your next choice for this cultural life is reading sci—fi in the cellar when you were supposed to be doing your homework. and especially reading george orwell. when did you first come across orwell, then? well, my dad liked science fiction, because he was a scientist and he used to get a big kick out of it. hmm. so he had quite a collection. but i first read animal farm cos it was in the house, my dad had it. hmm. and i thought it was going to be, "oh, good, animals! "just like wind

in the willows." talking animals? talking animals. what fun! er...but this is not what it was, and, of course, i didn't understand that it was an allegory of the soviet union at that time, based on the show trials and so forth. um... because you were, what — nine, ten...? yeah. i had no knowledge of those things. so itjust ruined me, because here were these nice animals and they...and they came to tragic ends, and it was very, very upsetting. when it came to 1984, then, what was it about that book that gripped you so much? having been born in 1939, two months after the onset of world war ii, i've always been pretty interested in dictatorships, and also world war ii. mm. er... so by the time i got round to being plunged into history, which would be in the �*50s, i had a context for...for all of this. er...and one of my... one of the things that has occupied me really quite a lot over time is, how did these dictatorships get going,

and how did they maintain themselves? and also, how do they fall apart when they fall apart? how important was it to you at the time, reading 1984? i mean, i presume... oh, it made a huge impact. huge? yes. and i...and i thought of it, um... my first reaction to it was the one that everybody has — this is a really gloomy book and it's very pessimistic. but, um...thinking about it later, i realised that he'd put this coda at the end. and it's a very hopeful thing, because it's a...an essay on newspeak, written in standard english, in the past tense. hmm. so the message is — it ended. it fell. the regime... it was gone, in some way. we're not told how, but we know it's gone because here are people writing about it as if it's

in the past. and the same thing happens at the end of the handmaid's tale... yes. now, that... when the reader realises... yes. ..that the narrative that has played out is being discussed at a symposium sometime in the future. so you come to the same conclusion, that the regime... well, i... ..has fallen. i mean, that's my model. and that's how you deal with, um...knowledge that you can't put in the main narrative. the handmaid's tale became, in effect, your generation's 1984. well, maybe, sort of... but, you know, at the time, it wasn't considered very plausible... hmm. ..by many. so, in 1985, it was not seen as a real possibility. that's interesting — you wrote it in 1984. idid. isn't that corny? not only that, i was writing it in west berlin, surrounded by the wall. living in west berlin, you were, i presume, very aware of what was happening on the other side

of that wall. yes. yes, they made sonic booms every sundayjust to remind us that they were there. and you were writing the handmaid's tale in berlin at that time and that atmosphere, that — that sense of difference was then feeding into the words that you were writing? yeah. more, more through actually visiting those places. so, we went to, um, east germany — that was easy for us, we were canadians. then there was czechoslovakia. fairly tightly sewed up but you can talk to people as long as you went into a field. and then, there was poland, which was already pretty loosey—goosey. so, those experiences of talking to people who had to be very careful about what they said, and you had to be very careful about what you repeated. it was veryjohn le carre. er, the whole thing, very familiar. so, that's creating an atmosphere, i presume, in the narrative? yes. that sense of a repressive society. and you have orwell,

who has kind of led the way and he's there in your imagination, as well, i presume. but what was the start — what was the catalyst for writing the handmaid's tale? the election of ronald reagan in 1980. reagan: with god's help, we can and will resolve - the problems which now confront us. and, after all, why shouldn't we believe that? we are americans. applause god bless you, and thank you. at which there was a big pushback against what the �*70s had been doing, particularly in the expansion of — of women's rights. so, �*70s quite expansionist. you could have your own credit card. chuckles stuff like that. and then, you get this pushback, and that was when they started activating the evangelical religious right as a political force. significant also is the fact

that i had studied 17th century american puritanism as a graduate student in the early �*60s, and i get to say bad things about those people because they are my ancestors. so, the family... literally. literally, yes, literally, they were puritan new englanders. but it's interesting that you witness what's happening in germany, ronald reagan is elected, so you start imagining the possibilities of a future totalitarian american regime but then, you reach back. well, these regimes are never made out of whole cloth. they're always based on something that was there before. they change the outfits, the names, the flags and the slogans, but it's — it's the same, um, infrastructure. so, what would the americans have? they'd go back to the puritans. that's my — that is

certainly my theory. it was my theory in the 1980s and you can see it in action now. that's what they want. it's what the right wing wants. it wants a hierarchical puritan theocracy. which is why the handmaid's tale has taken on new resonance and relevance in recent years, but also... i didn't do it. chuckles but it has also, of course, taken on new life in the form of a television series, so a whole new generation of viewers now. what was the biggest challenge for you in seeing that adapted for the screen? ok, you think i have any control or power, don't you? chuckles maybe a bit. no, i don't. i have maybe some influence. yeah. so, here's the actual story of what really happened. we made a film in 1989. today, only one out of 100 women can still bear children. and some women stopped. believing there would be no future, they refused. refused to bear children! they wouldn't even try! they were lazy women!

and we — we were launching it right at the moment when the berlin wall was coming down. newsreel: the moment berliners have waited - 28 years for. chanting cheering a symbolic breach in the structure that separated millions and claimed hundreds of lives. so, we had launched it in west berlin and it was the usual aesthetic conversation afterwards — the direction, the sets, the acting and so forth. then, we went across and showed it in east berlin, which was the first time any such thing had happened since world war ii, and the audience there was very different. watched it very intently. said, "this was our life," meaning you couldn't trust anybody and people are constantly ratting each other out. so that contract for that film contained a series

television, um, arrangement. and in those days, series television was dallas, or it was daytime soap. and the thought that anybody in that period would make a television show out of the handmaid's tale, the thought was — was, possibility, zero. that's never going to happen. the film was sold to a distributor, the distributor eventually went belly up, assets were dispersed, the contract disappeared. so, people came for a year saying, "can we make something "out of the handmaid's tale again?" and we would have to say, "we don't know who's "got the contract." we really didn't. wow! then, somebody opened a drawer at mgm and there was the contract. just when series television streaming started up, which is a perfect way of doing a longer novel. and that led to an led to an appetite for... that led to... ..serious, gritty drama...?

that led to the possibility of this happening. blessed be the fruit. may the lord open. and the showrunner was a guy called bruce miller who had read this in high school and he promised himself that when he grew up, he was going to make the handmaid's tale. so, he knew everything about it and talked himself into thejob. are you surprised, or maybe disturbed, at the continuing relevance 40 years after you wrote that book? well, it had periods of not being so relevant. so, it's newly relevant because of political changes in the united states. we go everywhere in twos. supposed to be for our protection, for companionship. there are no friends here. can't be. the truth is we're watching each other.

in terms of your life and your influence and what you've been discussing tonight, almost at odds with some of the themes of the novels, which explore, you know, the really dark aspects of humanity and the human experience — totalitarianism, rape and murder and all of these things. what — what compels you to immerse yourself? i don't particularly immerse myself, you know, ijust read the newspapers. blame it on the bbc news. laughs ijust like to read. well, i do research the details because if you don't and you get them wrong, you are going to get a letter beginning, "you idiot..." and nowadays, it wouldn't be a letter, it would be somebody yelling at you on social media. there's never been one person's truth in a margaret atwood novel, whether it's the blind assassin or alias grace or the handmaid's tale. and your narrators, your protagonists are rarely what they seem at first. that instinct to almost pull the rug underneath the reader's expectations, where does that come from, do you think?

well, ithink it comes from writing. it comes from writing novels. so — or it comes from storytelling. so, you don't want the first five pages of your book to give away the entire plot, do you? i don't, particularly if it's a murder mystery. i don't want to think, "oh, well, i know who did that. "it's very obvious." so, hook me in. present me with a mystery. make me want to know more. and that's a good beginning of a book. "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." "oh, tell me more! "in what way?" "the past is another country. "they do things differently there." "how differently?" "it was a bright, cold day in april and the clocks "were striking 13." which brings us back to george orwell. yes, it does. more than — well, it's around six decades since you first read him but in your most

recent collection of short stories, you summon him up from beyond the grave. you have an imagined conversation via a medium talking and it is, we presume, margaret atwood in conversation. yes. it's called margaret atwood. the character is called margaret atwood. yes, yes. yes. chuckles an imagined conversation, of course. dead giveaway. he's still — he's still very important to you? yes, and i'm allowing him to smoke in the afterlife because i'm a kind person. you're now in your 80s, margaret, and you're still as prolific as ever. what — what drives you on creatively? well, what else am i going to do all day? you know what samuel beckett said? "why do you write?" he said, "not good for anything else". chuckles it's too late for me to be a ballet dancer. oh, alas, a vanished career. well, i'm a freelancer, you know? and that's a good thing because i don't have a boss. you are your own boss.

continue to be. very enviable. margaret atwood, thank you so much for sharing your cultural life with us. thank you. voice-over: and for podcast episodes of this cultural life, | go to bbc sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. hello there. it has definitely been a gear change with the weather story in recent days. an autumnal flavour to our weather. we will certainly see threatening—looking skies for the remainder of the week and some of the rain at times really quite heavy. so here is the next batch pushing in off the atlantic, just look at how many isobars there are on the chart. the winds a feature and some of that rain really quite heavy. so, to start with, on tuesday,

the wettest of the weather moving out of northern ireland across southern scotland, northern england and wales. and we'll see this frontal system moving its way south and north throughout the day. now it never really gets all the way across central and southern england so here, brighter skies into the afternoon, pretty windy. gusts of winds 40—45mph in places, maybe close to 60mph in exposed west—facing coast and the heaviest of the rain across north—west england, scottish borders and northern ireland. the far north of scotland, bright as well, not quite as windy here but it will be noticeably fresher. top temperatures here around 13—15 celsius. we mightjust see 20 celsius further south if we get a little bit of afternoon brightness. now as we move out to tuesday into wednesday there's another area of low pressure and this one has the remnants, a little bit of energy from ex—hurricane lee there. so this one again will mean business, a lot of heavy rain sweeping its way steadily eastwards. don't forget the brighter

greens denoting the intensity of that rain and the winds again a feature, 50—60mph gusts not out of the question, particularly close to the centre of the low and far west of scotland. the top temperatures again, 14—21 celsius the high. so as we move out of wednesday there's more to come and it's all because the jet stream at the moment has sunk that little bit further south, it's intensified and centred across the uk. now all we know by now it's the jet stream, this ribbon of fast—moving air high up in the atmosphere that drives in areas of low pressure. and if it centres across the uk, then it's going to continue to push further areas of low in our direction. just look what's waiting in the wings as we head through the weekend. so, be prepared for some showers or longer spells of rain, the winds remaining a feature. a brief window of finer weather potentially on saturday. take care.

so you come to the same conclusion, that the regime...

live from new york, this is bbc news. world leaders are gathering right here in new york, as the united nations general assembly gets under way. five americans, jailed foryears in iran, freed today, in a controversial $6 billion deal. and rescue and recovery teams continue to work around the clock in libya, after deadly flooding leaves tens of thousands homeless.

i'm sumi somaskanda. thank you forjoining us. world leaders are here in new york this week for the annual united nations general assembly, convening this time under the shadow of the second year of war in ukraine, and amid a series of global climate catastrophes. 140 heads of state and government are set to attend, including, for the first time, in person, ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky. he'll then head to washington, to meet with us presidentjoe biden. high on the agenda for this year's summit is the climate. in 2015, the general assembly set goals for sustainable development to be reached by 2030. we're now halfway there, and progress appears to be lagging. un records show the world is on track to meetjust15% of the sustainability targets. half a billion people are likely to be still living in poverty in 2030, and 100 million children still won't be in school.

my colleague caitriona perry spoke about the issues at stake