Margaret Atwood was born in Canada in 1939. Atwood began writing plays and poems at the age of six and realized she wanted to write professionally when she was sixteen. She graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and minors in philosophy and French from the Victoria College in the University of Toronto. She obtained a master's degree from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1962 and pursued doctoral studies for two years, but did not finish her dissertation.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Atwood taught at various Canadian universities including the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta, and York University. During the 1980s, she served as the writer-in-residence at various universities around the world. Her first book of poetry, Double Persephone, was published as a pamphlet by Hawskhead Press in 1961 and won the E.J. Pratt Medal. Her first novel, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969.
Atwood has written over fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize, Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy and The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize.
Atwood is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.
Atwood delivered the Beatty Lecture on October 27, 2017, titled "Humanities in an Age of Environmental Crisis".
Image: Owen Egan
