The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

Emma Knight is an author and entrepreneur who lives in Toronto with her husband and family. She worked as a journalist and started a beverage company called Greenhouse while raising her two daughters. Though The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is her first novel, she wrote two cookbooks before publishing fiction. The author describes the cookbook titled How to Eat With One Hand as a meditation on motherhood. She has also spoken extensively about the fact that the setting and themes of The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus are inspired by her own life. She studied at the University of Edinburgh as an undergraduate and says, “For me, it was the idea of adventure that attracted me. And the moodiness of the city of Edinburgh, its beauty, its architectural gloriousness” (“The Octopus Metaphor.” CBC Bookends). Her love of Edinburgh is vividly portrayed in the novel’s setting.

Knight also states that the octopus metaphor at the heart of the novel is inspired by her own experiences of motherhood, and she is particularly captivated by the idea that the female octopus dies and sacrifices herself for her young, literally allowing her offspring to feed on her body.