Author of modern literary classic to release memoir in November | Books | Entertainment

The author of a modern literary classic is set to release her memoir early next month. Margaret Atwood has been described as one of the greatest storytellers of our time and an influential cultural figure, and now she is telling her own story.

Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and inventor, who, since 1961, has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children’s books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. This is no small feat by any means, but her best-known work is perhaps the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. 

Atwood has won countless awards and honours for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General’s Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for literature, and the National Book Critics and PEN Centre US Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television, including The Handmaid’s Tale, which recently ended but has a spin-off series on the way. Her works encompass a variety of themes, including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and power politics.

The memoir’s synopsis reads: “‘Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes. Though everything written must have passed through their minds, or mind, they are not the same.

“Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents – entomologist father, dietician mother – Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated (on her eighth birthday: ‘It sounds forlorn. It was forlorn. It gets more forlorn.’), but also thrilling and beautiful.

“From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel year that spawned Cat’s Eye to the Orwellian 1980s Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings, her magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel.

“As we travel with her along the course of her life, more and more is revealed about her writing, the connections between real life and art – and the workings of one of our greatest imaginations.”

Chatto & Windus will publish Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Atwood. It said the publication will “feature an unmissable, global campaign of standout media moments and in-person events with Margaret Atwood”.

The publisher added: “This landmark publication will explore the life and work of one of our most influential cultural figures, from her peripatetic childhood in the Canadian far north, through the writing of The Handmaid’s Tale, to her position today as a literary icon.”

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood is out from November 4.