Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian writer, poet, literary critic, and inventor. Since 1961, she has written 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 nonfiction books, nine short story collections, eight children’s books, two graphic novels, and many small press editions of poetry and fiction. Her most famous work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood has received many awards for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Order of Canada, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for literature, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. Several of her books have been made into movies and TV shows.
Atwood’s writing explores themes such as gender and identity, religion and myths, the power of language, climate change, and how leaders make decisions. Many of her poems are inspired by myths and fairy tales, which she has enjoyed since childhood.
Atwood helped start the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Writers’ Trust of Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow at Massey College in Toronto. She invented the LongPen, a device and related technologies that allow people to write documents remotely using a robot.
Early life and education
Margaret Atwood was born on November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She was the second of three children. Her father, Carl Edmund Atwood, was a scientist who studied insects. Her mother, Margaret Dorothy (née Killam), was a former dietitian and nutritionist from Woodville, Nova Scotia. Because her father worked as a forest entomologist, Atwood spent much of her childhood in the remote areas of northern Quebec and traveled frequently between Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, and Toronto.
She did not attend school full-time until she was 12 years old. She read many books, including literature, mystery stories, fairy tales, stories about Canadian animals, and comic books. She attended Leaside High School in Toronto and graduated in 1957. Atwood began writing plays and poems when she was 6 years old.
As a child, she joined the Brownie program, which is part of the Girl Guides of Canada. Atwood has written about her experiences in Girl Guides in several of her books.
Atwood decided she wanted to become a professional writer when she was 16 years old. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College, which is part of the University of Toronto. She published poems and articles in Acta Victoriana, the college’s literary journal, and took part in The Bob Revue, a theatrical tradition for second-year students. Her teachers included Jay Macpherson and Northrop Frye. She graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts in English (honors) and also studied philosophy and French.
In 1961, Atwood started graduate studies at Radcliffe College, which is part of Harvard University. She received a Woodrow Wilson fellowship to support her studies. She earned a master’s degree (MA) from Radcliffe in 1962 and studied for two years toward a doctoral degree. However, she did not complete her dissertation, titled The English Metaphysical Romance.
Career
Atwood's first poetry book, Double Persephone, was published as a small book by Hawkshead Press in 1961. It won the E. J. Pratt Medal. While writing poetry, Atwood worked as a teacher of English at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 1964 to 1965. She also taught at Sir George Williams University in Montreal from 1967 to 1968 and at the University of Alberta in Edmonton from 1969 to 1970. In 1966, The Circle Game was published. It won the Governor General's Award. This book was followed by other poetry collections: Kaleidoscopes Baroque: a poem (1965), Talismans for Children (1965), and Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein (1966), all published by Cranbrook Academy of Art. Another poetry collection, The Animals in That Country (1968), was also published. Atwood's first novel, The Edible Woman, came out in 1969. It is a social satire about North American consumerism. Many critics say this novel is an early example of feminist themes in Atwood's work.
Atwood taught at York University in Toronto from 1971 to 1972. She was also a writer in residence at the University of Toronto during the 1972/1973 academic year. During the 1970s, she published six poetry collections: The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970), Procedures for Underground (1970), Power Politics (1971), You Are Happy (1974), Selected Poems 1965–1975 (1976), and Two-Headed Poems (1978). She also wrote three novels during this time: Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), and Life Before Man (1979). Life Before Man was a finalist for the Governor General's Award. These novels, like The Edible Woman, explore themes such as identity, gender, nationhood, and sexual politics. Surfacing and her first non-fiction book, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), helped establish Atwood as an important voice in Canadian literature. In 1977, Atwood published her first short story collection, Dancing Girls, which won the St. Lawrence Award for Fiction and the Periodical Distributors of Canada Award for Short Fiction.
By 1976, interest in Atwood's work and life was so high that Maclean's magazine called her "Canada's most gossiped-about writer."
Atwood's reputation grew in the 1980s with the publication of Bodily Harm (1981), The Handmaid's Tale (1985), and Cat's Eye (1988). The Handmaid's Tale won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Governor General's Award and was a finalist for the Booker Prize. Cat's Eye was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Booker Prize. Atwood says The Handmaid's Tale is a work of speculative fiction, a type of imaginative story. She explains that "everything in the book has a real-life precedent."
While some critics look for personal details from Atwood's life in her work, especially in Cat's Eye, Atwood says she does not want readers to focus too much on her life when reading her books. A film called Margaret Atwood: Once in August (1984) shows how difficult it was for the filmmaker to find personal connections in her work.
During the 1980s, Atwood taught at several universities, including the University of Alabama, New York University, Macquarie University in Australia, and Trinity University in Texas. She said, "Success for me meant no longer having to teach at university."
Atwood's reputation continued to grow with the publication of The Robber Bride (1993) and Alias Grace (1996). The Robber Bride was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the James Tiptree Jr. Award. Alias Grace won the Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Booker Prize, Governor General's Award, and Orange Prize for Fiction. Both novels use female characters to explore ideas about good, evil, and morality. Atwood said about The Robber Bride, "I'm not making a case for evil behavior, but unless you have some women characters portrayed as evil characters, you're not playing with a full range." The Robber Bride is set in modern-day Toronto, while Alias Grace is a historical novel about the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery.
Atwood had previously written a 1974 TV film called The Servant Girl, which was about Grace Marks, the servant who was convicted of the murders. She also published a poetry collection, Snake Woman, in 1999 for the journal Kalliope.
In 2000, Atwood published her tenth novel, The Blind Assassin, which won the Booker Prize and the Hammett Prize. It was also nominated for the Governor General's Award, Orange Prize, and International Dublin Literary Award. In 2001, she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
Atwood followed this with Oryx and Crake (2003), the first book in the MaddAddam Trilogy, which includes The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013). These books explore themes like genetic modification, corporate control, and man-made disasters. Atwood says the technology in Oryx and Crake is based on real possibilities. She also says in MaddAddam, "Although this is a work of fiction, it does not include any technologies or bio-beings that do not already exist, are not under construction, or are not possible in theory."
In 2005, Atwood published The Penelopiad, a retelling of The Odyssey from Penelope's perspective. It was made into a play in 2007.
In 2016, Atwood published Hag-Seed, a modern version of Shakespeare's The Tempest, as part of the Hogarth Shakespeare Series.
On November 28, 2018, Atwood announced The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, which was published in September 201
Recurring themes and cultural contexts
Margaret Atwood has contributed to the thinking about Canadian identity, both in Canada and around the world. Her most important work of literary criticism, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), is still used as a standard introduction to Canadian literature in Canadian studies programs, even though it has not been updated. Joseph Pivato, a writer and teacher, has criticized the continued printing of Survival by Anansi Press, saying it limits students' understanding of Canadian literature.
In Survival, Atwood argues that Canadian literature and identity are connected to the idea of "survival." This idea is shown through the frequent use of "victim positions" in Canadian stories. These positions describe the level of awareness and growth of a person who is being oppressed by others, nature, or other forces in a "victor/victim" relationship. Atwood’s ideas in Survival were influenced by Northrop Frye’s theory of "garrison mentality," which describes Canada’s tendency to isolate itself from outside influences. Atwood uses this concept to analyze Canadian literature. She believes that Canadian literature reflects Canadian identity, which has been shaped by fear of nature, the history of settlers, and a strong sense of community. In a 1979 interview with critic Bill Findlay, Atwood discussed how Canadian writers relate to the cultural influences of America and Britain.
Atwood’s contributions to Canadian literature go beyond her non-fiction works. Books like The Journals of Susanna Moodie, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and Surfacing are examples of "historiographic metafiction," a term used by postmodern theorist Linda Hutcheon to describe works that explore the relationship between history and storytelling.
Atwood has also helped support Canadian literature through her roles as a founding trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize and as a founder of the Writers’ Trust of Canada, a non-profit organization that supports Canadian writers.
Atwood’s work has been studied by feminist critics, even though she has sometimes avoided labeling her work as "feminist." In an interview about her first novel, The Edible Woman, she said, "I don’t consider it feminism; I just consider it social realism." Critics, however, have analyzed themes like gender, myth, and relationships in her work through a feminist lens. In a 1985 interview with feminist theorist Elizabeth Meese, Atwood defined feminism as "a belief in the rights of women" and said she would oppose extreme feminist groups that act against men. In 2017, she explained her discomfort with the term "feminism," saying that its meaning depends on the person using it. She also mentioned disagreements with some feminist positions, such as opposition to makeup or transgender women using women’s restrooms. In an interview, she said the main question driving The Handmaid’s Tale was about how to push women back into the home, but she linked this idea to totalitarianism, not feminism.
In 2018, Atwood wrote an op-ed titled "Am I a Bad Feminist?" for The Globe and Mail in response to criticism over her support for a legal process involving a professor accused of misconduct. She defended her stance, saying she supported due process in the legal system. She has also faced criticism for her comments about the #MeToo movement, which she described as a symptom of a broken legal system.
In 2018, Atwood was honored at a gala by the organization Equality Now for her partnership with Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. In her speech, she said she was not an activist but a writer who often discusses topics that could be controversial. She praised Equality Now’s work in advocating for equal rights. In 2019, she partnered with Equality Now for the release of The Testaments.
Atwood has said that The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake are not science fiction but "speculative fiction." She explained that science fiction includes elements like spaceships or aliens, while speculative fiction deals with real-world possibilities. In 2005, she said she sometimes writes "social science fiction" and that The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake could be classified this way. She clarified that speculative fiction uses real-world methods and settings, while science fiction explores ideas that are not yet possible. In 2011, she discussed differences between science fiction and fantasy with author Ursula K. Le Guin, saying that genre categories are becoming more flexible.
In 2024, the Utah Legislature, controlled by Republicans, passed a law requiring the removal of books considered objectionable from public schools. On August 2, 2024, the Utah State School Board released its first list of banned books, which included Oryx and Crake by Atwood.
Atwood often writes about the relationship between humans and animals in her stories. In Oryx and Crake, much of the dystopian world she creates involves the genetic modification of living things.
TV cameos
In 2017, Atwood appeared briefly in the first episode of The Handmaid's Tale (TV Series) as an Aunt figure who slapped the character Offred.
In 2024, Atwood appeared in season 17, episode of Murdoch Mysteries as Lorin Quinelle, a person who studies birds as a hobby.
In 2026, Atwood appeared in season 1, episode 10 of The Testaments. She played a prison guard.
Activism
In 2018, Atwood signed a petition from the American PEN Center to support Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov, who was held in a Russian prison for political reasons.
In July 2020, Atwood joined 153 others in signing a letter titled "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate," which expressed worry that the free sharing of information and ideas, essential for a democratic society, was becoming more limited.
On February 24, 2022, Atwood briefly discussed the war in Ukraine during the Russian invasion and shared a link to a government aid fund on Twitter. She continues to share updates about the war on social media.
In 2025, Atwood was among 200 cultural figures who signed a letter asking for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader who was imprisoned.
Adaptations
Margaret Atwood's novel Surfacing (1972) was made into a film in 1981. The film was written by Bernard Gordon and directed by Claude Jutra. Critics gave it poor reviews, with one saying the film did not try to create film versions that match the book's style or poetic ideas.
Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985) has been adapted many times. A film version was made in 1990, directed by Volker Schlöndorff and written by Harold Pinter. This film received mixed reviews. A musical version became an opera in 2000, written by Poul Ruders and with a script by Paul Bentley. It first performed at the Royal Danish Opera in 2000 and was later shown in 2003 at London's English National Opera and the Minnesota Opera. In 2019, Boston Lyric Opera produced the opera, which The New York Times called "a triumph." A television series based on the book, created by Bruce Miller, began airing on Hulu in 2017. The first season won eight Emmy Awards in 2017, including Outstanding Drama Series. The second season started in April 2018, and Hulu announced a third season in May 2018. Atwood appeared briefly in the first episode as one of the Aunts at the Red Center. In 2019, a graphic novel with the same name as the book was published by Renée Nault (ISBN 9780224101936).
In 2003, six of Atwood's short stories were adapted for the anthology television series The Atwood Stories by Shaftesbury Films.
Atwood's 2008 Massey Lectures were turned into a documentary called Payback (2012), directed by Jennifer Baichwal. The film includes commentary by Atwood and experts like economist Raj Patel, ecologist William E. Rees, and religious scholar Karen Armstrong. It explores topics such as debt, an Armenian blood feud, farming conditions, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Atwood's novel Alias Grace (1996) became a six-part miniseries in 2017. It was directed by Mary Harron and adapted by Sarah Polley. The series first aired on CBC on September 25, 2017, and was later released on Netflix on November 3, 2017. Atwood appeared briefly in the fourth episode as a disapproving churchgoer.
A documentary called In the Wake of the Flood (2010), directed by Ron Mann, followed Atwood during a unique book tour for her novel The Year of the Flood (2009). During this tour, Atwood created a theatrical version of the novel using local performers from the areas she visited. The film is described as a "fly-on-the-wall" documentary that shows real events as they happen.
Atwood's children's book Wandering Wenda and Widow Wallop's Wunderground Washery (2011) was adapted into a children's television series called The Wide World of Wandering Wenda, which aired on CBC starting in spring 2017. The animated series is aimed at early readers and follows Wenda and her friends as they explore adventures using words, sounds, and language.
Director Darren Aronofsky was originally planned to direct a television adaptation of Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy for HBO. However, HBO canceled the project in October 2016. In January 2018, it was announced that Paramount Television and Anonymous Content had acquired the rights to the trilogy and would produce it without Aronofsky.
Personal life
Margaret Atwood has a sister named Ruth Atwood, who was born in 1951, and a brother named Harold Leslie Atwood, who is two years older than her. Atwood has said that her grandmother, whose maiden name was Webster, believed that Mary Webster, a woman who survived being attacked during the 17th century for being accused of witchcraft, might have been her ancestor. Atwood described her grandmother’s uncertainty about this connection: "On Monday, my grandmother would say Mary was her ancestor, and on Wednesday she would say she wasn't… So take your pick." Mary Webster is the subject of Atwood’s poem "Half-Hanged Mary" and the dedication in her book The Handmaid's Tale (1985).
Atwood married Jim Polk, an American writer, in 1968, but they divorced in 1973. Soon after, she began a relationship with Graeme Gibson, another writer, and moved to a farm near Alliston, Ontario. Their daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, was born there in 1976.
The family returned to Toronto in 1980. Atwood and Gibson remained together until September 18, 2019, when Gibson passed away after living with dementia. Atwood wrote about Gibson in her poem Dearly and in an essay about grief and poetry published in The Guardian in 2020. She once said of Gibson, "He wasn't an egotist, so he wasn't threatened by anything I was doing. He said to our daughter towards the end of his life, 'Your mum would still have been a writer if she hadn't met me, but she wouldn't have had as much fun.'"
Although Atwood is a well-known writer, she has said she is "a terrible speller" and writes both on a computer and by hand. She also owns a summer home on Pelee Island in Lake Erie.
Awards and honours
Atwood has many special degrees from different schools, including The Sorbonne, NUI Galway, Oxford, and Cambridge universities.
She was also nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for producing The Handmaid's Tale in 2018, 2020, and 2021.