Atwood, Margaret Eleanor (1939– )

Canadian novelist, short-story writer, and poet. Her novels often treat feminist themes with wit and irony. She is well known for her dystopian novels The Handmaid's Tale (1986, filmed 1990, opera 2003) and Oryx and Crake (2003). She won the Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin (2000), which interweaves a family saga and a science-fiction story within a story.

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, and educated at the University of Toronto, Atwood has lived and worked in the USA, UK, and central Europe. Atwood's other novels explore a number of themes such as societal and female identities, sexual politics, and criminal motives, and include The Edible Woman (1969), Cat's Eye (1989), The Robber Bride (1993), Alias Grace (1996), and The Penelopiad (2005). Collections of poetry include The Circle Game (1966), Power Politics (1971), You are Happy (1974), and Interlunar (1984). She published a short-story collection, Moral Disorder in 2006.