Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse - their activities, looking at what costumes they have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play.

In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the title: if a writer is to be seen as ‘gifted’, who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift? Margaret Atwood’s wide reference to other writers is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences, both in Canada and on the international scene. The lightness of her touch is underlined by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of Western literature.