acclaimed poet, critic and novelist best known for the handmaid's tale, cat's eye, the blind assassin, and oryx and crake. her latest book the heart goes last has just been published. she's margaret atwood this is overheard. (inspiring music) (applause) - [evan] let's be honest is this about the ability to learn or about the experience of not having to talk at all. how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa-- you say that he had made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and over time took it on-- (laughter) let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you going to run for president? i think i just got an f from you actually. (applause) margaret atwood welcome. - thank you. - very nice to have you here. - lovely to be here. - so interested in this new book, congratulations on it. may i say nobody does dystopian like you do dystopian. (laughs) - is that a compliment? - oh my god it's the biggest compliment in the world. i mean the world that you've created in this book will come back to the handmaid's tale at some point here soon rem

she's best known for her novels, the handmaid's tale, the blind assassin, oryx and crake.ut she's written poetry, blog fiction and, this year, a superhero comic book, too. she has a worldwide legion of fans. so what keeps her creative juices flowing? margaret atwood, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. ijust referred to your prolific and diverse output over many years. but you've just done something you've never done before. you've taken on adapting shakespeare. and you've always said shakespeare is pretty much your favourite author. so how daunting was that? very, very daunting. first of all you knew that you were going to get a lot of people saying that you shouldn't do it, and you can't improve on shakespeare, etc. and second because i took on the tempest. and that has a whole slew of problems of its own. the brief was very broad. so it was, choose a play and do whatever, as long as it's a novel. and i mean, you've created this wonderfully sort of imaginative new take, where it's sort of set in a prison. prospero becomes a guy who is sort of a theatre manager who was thwart