Editions

Dearly

Dearly

  • Poems

RELEASED 10/11/2020

The collection of a lifetime from the bestselling novelist, poet -- and cultural phenomenon

Before she became one of the world's most important and loved novelists, Margaret Atwood was a poet. Dearly is her first collection in over a decade. It brings together many of her most recognisable and celebrated themes, but distilled -- from minutely perfect descriptions of the natural world to startlingly witty encounters with aliens, from pressing political issues to myth and legend.

By turns moving, playful and wise, the poems gathered in Dearly are about absences and endings, ageing and retrospection, but also about gifts and renewals. They explore bodies and minds in flux, as well as the everyday objects and rituals that embed us in the present. Werewolves, sirens and dreams make their appearance, as do various forms of animal life and fragments of our damaged environment.

Dearly is a pure Atwood delight, and long-term readers and new fans alike will treasure its insight, empathy and humour.

Reviews

  • A poignant yet playful collection of verse, about endings and departures, it is sliced with clever, sharp humour

    Sonia Haria, Daily Telegraph

More from this Author

View all View all
View all View all

About the Author

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, went back into the bestseller charts with the election of Donald Trump, when the Handmaids became a symbol of resistance against the disempowerment of women, and with the 2017 release of the award-winning Channel 4 TV series. Its sequel, The Testaments, was published in 2019 and was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Margaret Atwood

Read more

/content/dam/prh/articles/adults/2019/october/article_card_booker_winners_2019.jpg

News

Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo jointly awarded 2019 Booker Prize

Two Penguin Random House authors Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo have been jointly named as the winners of this year’s Booker Prize for The Testaments and Girl, Woman, Other respectively
/content/dam/prh/articles/archive/Handmaid Offred and Atwood.jpg

Features

Margaret Atwood: 'The Handmaid's Tale is being read very differently now'

Since The Handmaid’s Tale hit TV screens in 2017, Margaret Atwood’s already-prominent profile as a feminist has blazed ever brighter. Here she talks about how the novel came to fruition while she was living in Berlin, speaking up and what’s next for feminism. The sequel to the book The Testaments will publish 2019.
/content/dam/prh/articles/archive/HandmaidsTaleQuiz.png

Quizzes

How much do you know about The Handmaids Tale?

True or false? Book or TV Show? Step right up to test your knowledge of Margaret Atwood's modern classic, The Handmaid's Tale

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.