Margaret Atwood: literary artist or paperback writer

Although I liked some of Atwood's early work, I could not get through Handmaids' Tale. It read to me like an ordinary fantasy thriller with a political intent.

I am often wrong, and accept that Atwood is a highly respected author. I won't contest that, but I am interested in hearing the argument for her inclusion as an author of 'literature' where 'literature' is a 'higher' form of writing than pulp fiction. In other words the literay elitist view of Margaret Atwood's work.