Atwood speaks of childhood memories and applauded Marcha LGBTI+ in Porto

Dunder a torrid sun, thousands of people were waiting this afternoon in queues to the Garden of Cordory area to get into the literary session, where Canadian writer Margaret Atwood (1939) would talk about her memories in a session inserted in the literary festival Babell, which takes place in Porto until next Monday.

The literary session with Atwood started at 4:17 p.m. in the historic Gomes Teixeira Square, also known as Lions Square, with the moderation of writer and translator Tânia Gaino who began by asking Atwood how she managed to remember so many details of her past to write 600 pages of memories.

Margaret Atwood stated that her memoirs were not written with the help of a diary that has “together with the bed” and where she wrote and writes her daily life, stating that memories are about what she really remembers, are “stupid things” that she did, stupid things that did to her, catastrophes, funny stories or near-death experiences.

“ I have to write everything, otherwise I forget everything”, said the author of “History of a Servant”, adding that “different people have different memories of the same event”.

Atwood said that his childhood was lived in remote forests in northern Canada, Quebec, because his father was an entomologist and spent eight months in the year studying insects, which gave the writer the experience of isolation, something that will mark her writing. At home, Atwood reveals that there was no electricity, no running water, no washing machine.

Asked about the possibility that her books frightened male readers and critics, the writer admitted that she did, but stated that today, because she was older, they are less scared, pulling laughter from the audience.

“ They're less scared than they were before, because now I can be an old figure. It's about age. The older we are, the more we are accepted. There's an equation. When you are a young writer, you are a promising star (...) in the middle of your career, you are the same age as your critics, so you are someone who really understands them (...)

But when you are older than the people who are writing about you, you are an intelligent woman or an old witch.”.

Asked about the ‘bulling’ memories that he was targeted as a child, Atwood confirmed that he was about 9 years old and that it was mainly the girls who did it.

“It’s quite different between girls and boys. Boys usually have an open hierarchy. Who's the best at this, or the biggest, or who's good at sports is the top kid and the others get organized into pyramids below. The girls are much more like the Byzantine court. One day you're the favorite, there's a conspiracy campaign and it's exposed. There's no reason for anyone to point the finger, but one is in and the other is out. It is a very different dynamic”, he said.

On the issue of being a feminist, Atwood recalled that there are 75 different types of feminism, according to Wikipedia, and that when asked if she is a feminist, Atwood asks what kind of feminism.

Margaret Atwood states that she is not the feminist type who advocates that men should disappear and that only 10% should be kept for purposes of procreation.

“No. I'm not that guy. I am interested in human rights, women’s rights are a subsector of human rights and human rights include men.”.

The author of the “History of a Servant” said she receives letters from all over the world and tells her that the “History of a Servant” is not fiction.

During the literary session there was an interruption because of the noise that echoed the LGBTI+ Pride March in Porto, which brought together several hundred people who wanted to “remember not to repeat” the death of Gisberta Salce, murdered in 2006, and alert to “the setback” in transsexual rights.

When she realized that this was a demonstration in favor of transsexual human rights, Margaret Atwood made a point of applauding during the brief interruption that took place in the literary session.

The session ended with thousands of people in the audience cheering the writer standing.

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, 86, began writing at the age of six, entered full-time school at the age of 12, and at the age of 16 began writing professionally. He is an internationally recognized novelist, poet, contista, essayist and literary critic, with several literary awards won, namely the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987, with “The History of a Servant”, which she herself admitted to be “social scientific fiction”. The author portrays female characters dominated by patriarchy in some of her novels.

The literary festival Babell started on Wednesday and runs until Monday, with names such as Olga Tokarczuk and Salman Rushdie in a programme of literary sessions, concerts, cinema and other performances that, in all, cost more than 3 million euros to the foundation of the Lello Bookshop, except for the support of the House of Porto, which co-organizes the event.