Doubleday will publish a new collection of Margaret Atwood's essays, Burning Questions: Essays 2004-2021, on March 1, 2022. U.S. rights were acquired from Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown.
Doubleday has announced a first hardcover print run of 100,000 copies; the book will be published simultaneously as an e-book and audiobook by Penguin Random House. A trade paperback edition will be published by Anchor the following year. The book will be published by McClelland & Stewart in Canada and Chatto & Windus/Vintage in the U.K.
The selection of more than 50 essays, the publisher said, "seeks answers to burning questions such as: Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? How can we live on our planet? Is it true? And is it fair? What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?"
Atwood's previous book, The Testaments, a follow-up to her bestselling The Handmaid's Tale, has sold roughly 500,000 print copies at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. It received a starred review from PW.
“It's been a wild ride so far, the twenty-first century,” Atwood said in a statement. “Many of the questions that have been smoldering for decades have now burst into flames. Unless we can answer them, quickly and effectively, so will we.”
