Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer born in Ottawa on 18 November 1939. She has worked as a poet, novelist, critic, essayist and teacher, and she is also known for her environmental activism. She first drew attention as a poet in the 1960s, and her fiction soon brought her a wide international readership.

Her books often explore power, gender, memory, survival and the relationship between people and the natural world. She is especially admired for imagined futures that feel uncomfortably close to the present, and for historical novels that give voice to people overlooked by official accounts. Her work is clear, witty and sharp, and it has been widely translated, studied in schools and universities, and adapted for stage and screen. She remains one of the most influential living writers in English.