Contents
Margaret Atwood
Writing The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopia about women living under a religious dictatorship.
Canadian literature · The Blind Assassin
- Born
- 18 November 1939
- Birthplace
- Ottawa, Canada
More people
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet and essayist. Her fiction moves between everyday power struggles and imagined futures, often examining women’s lives, environmental damage and the uses of storytelling.
Early life
Forests and books
Her entomologist father’s work took the family into the Canadian woods, where reading became central to her childhood.
Literary education
She studied at the University of Toronto and then at Radcliffe College.
Career
- 1961
First poetry collection
Double Persephone began her published literary career.
- 1969
First novel
The Edible Woman brought her social satire to a longer fictional form.
- 1985
International landmark
The Handmaid’s Tale made its imagined state of Gilead widely familiar.
- 2000–2019
Booker recognition
The Blind Assassin won the Booker; The Testaments later shared the prize.
Selected work
The Handmaid’s Tale
A woman records life under a regime that controls reproduction.
The Blind Assassin
A family history contains another story, with a further fictional tale nested inside it.
Oryx and Crake
A speculative novel explores biotechnology and a devastated future.
Beyond work
Conservation
She has supported bird conservation and environmental organisations.
Family
Her long partnership with writer Graeme Gibson lasted until his death in 2019; they had a daughter.
Sources & photo credit
Biography ↗Life and work ↗Photo: Collision Conf. CC BY 2.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
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