Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake – Atwood, Margaret

Oryx and Crake: a novel

Margaret Atwood

For my family

I could perhaps like others have astonished you


with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose


to relate plain matter of fact in the simplest


manner and style; because my principal design


was to inform you, and not to amuse you.

Jonathan Swift,



Gulliver’s Travels

Was there no safety? No learning by heart of


the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter,


but all was miracle and leaping from the


pinnacle of a tower into the air?

Virginia Woolf,



To the Lighthouse