Life Before Man

Life Before Man is a tragicomic tale of love seeking to find its way in the wake of death from the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments

Elizabeth has just lost her latest lover to suicide while Nate, her husband, is working up to run off with Lesje.

A modern saga...she has a fine ear for words and a quick wit for absudities

An extraordinary imagination - witty, light-footed, realistic, yet with shooting insights into the nature of personality and love

Tender, funny, absorbing, idiosyncratic, truthful, heartening... A liberating novel. It deserves a wide readership

Mordant intelligence; formidable insight into the springs of human self-deception, self-aggrandisement and self-destruction; and an effortless, always vivid style

Beautifully written and constructed... A rich and elegant achievement

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 was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments , which was a global number one bestseller and shared the Booker Prize. Her most recent publications are the poetry collections Dearly and Paper Boat; Burning Questions , a selection of essays; Old Babes in the Wood , a volume of short stories; and Book of Lives , her memoir.

Atwood is a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, and 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. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.