The Blind Assassin.

ATWOOD, Margaret.

$1,500.00

Item Number: 142419

New York: Nan A. Talese, 2000.

First American edition of Atwood’s Booker and Hammett Prize-winning work, named by Time Magazine as the best novel of 2000. Octavo, original half cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the half-title page, “To Erica with all best wishes – Peggy A. 2000.” The recipient, Erica Jong remains best known for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying which became famously controversial for its portrayal of female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. Written in the first person and narrated by its protagonist, 29-year-old American poet Isadora Wing, Fear of Flying was written in the throes of the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s and encapsulated the movement’s redefinition of female sexuality. In interviews, Jong stated: “At the time I wrote Fear of Flying, there was not a book that said women are romantic, women are intellectual, women are sexual—and brought all those things together… What [Isadora is] looking for is how to be a whole human being, a body and a mind, and that is what women were newly aware they needed in 1973.” The novel remains a feminist classic and has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Mario J. Pulice. An exceptional association linking these two wonderful writers.

Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and unique work of historical fiction, with the major events of Canadian history forming an important backdrop. The novel was awarded the Booker Prize in 2000 and the Hammett Prize in 2001. It was also nominated for Governor General's Award in 2000, Orange Prize for Fiction, and the International Dublin Literary Award in 2002. Time magazine named it the best novel of 2000 and included it in its list of the 100 greatest English-language novels since 1923. As of 2019, The Blind Assassin is Atwood's second highest-selling novel after The Handmaid's Tale, having sold over half a million copies of hard-cover and paper-back combined. Sales of the novel jumped tenfold in 2000 after receiving the Booker Prize.