Margaret Atwood: “Controlling a woman’s body is a way of controlling a woman”

One of the most awaited guests of this edition of Paraty International Literary Festival (Flip), Margaret Atwood participated this Wednesday night (1) in the 10th table of the event, “Utopia and Dystopia”, dialoguing with scientist Antonio Nobre.

The theme has a strong presence not only in the best-seller “O Conto da Aia”, but in works by the author such as “Oryx and Crake” (2003), “O Ano do Dilúvio” (2009) and “Maddadão” (2013).

The trilogy narrates in first person the plot of the last survivor of the human species. With the advance of the climate crisis and the lively debate about possible solutions and solutions to the problem, this literary fantasy reflects a fear that finds more and more support in reality.

“Just as we are not separate from nature, we are not separate from time and the cycles of life. We want to think that we are above all, that we are beings who can transcend nature, time, circumstances and existence”, pointed out the Canadian writer.

Scientist Antonio Nobre, in turn, is responsible for some of the most outstanding studies on threats against Brazilian forests. Even in the face of discouraging data, he persists in the utopian defense of union and collaboration – virtues that, argues Nobre, made possible the formation of complex cells in human beings, plants and fungi and, therefore, are at the origin of life itself.

“Collaboration is totally ubiquitous in nature. If you look at how these cells formed, it’s endosymbiosis: a process of intimate fusion, of union. It is a process of love. Love shouldn’t be a corny topic, we shouldn’t have difficulty talking about it, especially scientists”, he defended.

In mediating the debate, Portuguese Anabela Mota Ribeiro asked Margaret Atwood about the term Ustopia, a combination of utopia – an imagined perfect society – and dystopia – its opposite: an unhappy place, of pain and difficulty.

The concept, created by the Canadian writer, supports the idea that utopia and dystopia are contained within each other, as what is perfect in the imagination tends to assume greater contradictions when put into practice, and similarly, contexts of oppression and difficulty awaken the imagination of another possible world.

Atwood explained: “If we look at each of these literary dystopias, we see built in the idea of ​​a better society. And in every utopia there is a little dystopia”.

Asked about the topic of fertility in her best-known work, “O Conto da Aia”, the 82-year-old writer, good-humored, disagreed with the idea proposed by the mediator that writing would be a way of being fertile. “Books are not like babies,” he said.

“Conto da Aia only goes back about 100 years ago, exposing how things were in the mid-20th century, at least for women, especially when placed in a fundamentalist religious framework. Controlling a woman’s body is a way of controlling a woman. Not only totalitarian regimes, but patriarchal systems in general have always wanted to do this.”

In speeches that highlighted the seriousness of the climate crisis, the obstacles to overcome it and the limitations of the way of life established by human beings on the planet, both participants signaled the connection with the knowledge of traditional peoples as a necessary path to think about more harmonious ways of existence in the world.

“My father was a forest entomologist, so I spent most of my childhood in Canadian forests. The perspective this gives us is that there are many different ways to live,” recalled Atwood. “Antonio and I can agree that we have to involve the perspective of native peoples if we want to have the capacity to reverse the mechanistic and technological approach of the civilization in which we find ourselves”, he concluded.

Antonio Nobre defended the union between science and the knowledge of indigenous peoples about forests for the development of an awareness that, according to him, would be the only way to protect society from dystopia.

“The Indians bring in a fabled language a synthesis that has the elegance of the most powerful mathematical equation to explain phenomena. We depend on them to make a quick and integrative reading of the holism that we have lost with a reductionist world, without, on the other hand, losing everything that scientific reductionism has brought us. It has been a fantastic cycle of union with indigenous peoples and science.”

At the end of the meeting, Margaret Atwood stressed that she has memories of hearing conversations about species extinction at the dinner table at her home.

“People have been talking about this since the 1950s, biologists at least. The problem is that politicians are short-term thinkers, they always think about how to get re-elected”, he criticized.

He then highlighted the mobilization of civil society, citing the activist Greta Thunberg, as a sign of a change in the posture of the new generations.

At the end of the speech, the Canadian writer made a point of praising and thanking the pounds interpreters who participated at the table for their work.