Margaret Atwood began writing her eleventh novel, Oryx and Crake, in March 2001 when she was still on tour for her previous book, The Blind Assassin (2000). In a January 2003 article for the Book-of-the-Month Club/Bookspan entitled “Writing Oryx and Crake”, she reminisces:
By that time I had reached Australia. After I’d finished the book-related events, my spouse and I and two friends traveled north, to Max Davidson’s camp in the monsoon rain forest of Arnheimland. For the most part we were bird-watching, but we also visited several open-sided cave complexes where Aboriginal people had lived continuously, in harmony with their environment, for tens of thousands of years. After that we went to Cassowary House, near Cairns, operated by Philip Gregory, an extraordinary birder; and it was while looking over Philip’s balcony at the red-necked...
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Citation: Rapatzikou, Tatiani. "Oryx and Crake". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 September 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12545, accessed 09 June 2026.]
