Oryx and Crake

Margaret Atwood projects us into a less-than-brave new world, an outlandish yet wholly believable space populated by a cast of memorable characters.

The narrator is Snowman. As the story begins, he's sleeping in a tree, wearing a dirty old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. Earlier, his life was one of comparative privilege, living with all the other smart, rich people in the gated company towns owned by biotech corporations. (Ordinary folks are kept outside in the chaotic 'pleeblands'.) How did everything fall apart so quickly? Was he himself in any way responsible? 

"Environmental unconcern, genetic engineering, and bioterrorism have created the hollowed-out, haunted future world of Atwood’s ingenious and disturbing 11th novel... A landmark work of speculative fiction, comparable to A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World, and Russian revolutionary Zamyatin’s We. Atwood has surpassed herself."  -  Kirkus Reviews

Margaret Atwood is the world-renowned author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. The multi-award-winning author has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. 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, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which won the Booker Prize. She has also been shortlisted for The Man Booker International Prize 2005 and 2007 for her entire body of work.