Margaret Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher, and environmental activist. She has published seventeen books of poetry, sixteen novels, ten books of non-fiction, eight collections of short fiction, eight children's books, and one graphic novel, as well as several small press editions in poetry and fiction since 1961. Atwood is also the inventor and developer of the LongPen and associated technologies that facilitate the remote robotic writing of documents.
Margaret Atwood is best famous as a writer for her literature poetries and books such as ’The Circle Game’(poetry), The Handmaid’s Tale'(novel),‘Alias Grace’(novel), and ‘The Blind Assassin’(novel). Atwood is also famous as the inventor and developer of the LongPen and associated technologies that facilitate the remote robotic writing of documents.
Atwood was born as Margaret Eleanor Atwood on 18 November 1939 in Ottawa, Canada to parents, Margaret Dorothy, a former dietician and nutritionist, and Carl Edmund Atwood, an entomologist. She has two other siblings. She holds Canadian nationality and belongs to White ethnicity. Her religion is Christianity and her zodiac is Scorpio. As an entomologist, her father used to work mostly in the forest and therefore she spent most of her childhood in the backwoods of Quebec. The writing was one of her many interests besides school. She went to a regular full-time school only after eighth grade. She decided to pursue the career of a professional writer at the age of 16. She completed her schooling in 1957 from Leaside High School, Toronto. In 1961, she graduated with ‘Bachelor of Arts in English’ degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto. During her graduation, she published her poems and articles in Acta Victoriana, the college literary journal. In 1961, she privately printed a book of poems, ‘Double Persephone’, and became the winner of E.J.Pratt medal. She obtained her master’s degree from Harvard’s Radcliffe College in 1962 and pursued further studies at Harvard University, but was unable to finish her dissertation.
Her first major professional work was a book of poetry, ’The Circle Game’ published in 1964 which was highly praised worldwide. Moving on she went on to write numerous novels, short stories, poems, children's books, screenplays, and e-books. Her 1969 feminist novel, ‘The Edible Women’ was another masterpiece about a woman who cannot eat and feels that she is being eaten. Her 1972 novel, ‘Surfacing’, is about a daughter’s search for her missing father and is considered one of the best novels of her career. She wrote ‘Life Before Man’ in 1979, a novel with three principal characters with each of them having their perspective on events occurring in each chapter. The book was positively reviewed by the New York Times. She also edited many books, including ‘The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English’ in 1983 and ‘The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English’ in 1986, with Robert Weaver. She is also an inventor who invented ‘LongPen’, the concept of remote robotic writing technology and is currently the Chairman and CEO of Syngrafii Corporation, holder of various patents to LongPen technology. Her vision of a scientific dystopia in the form of a novel, ‘Oryx and Crake’, was short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction. She is currently involved in ‘Future Library Project’. The project aims at collecting one original story by a popular writer every year until 2114, and the story will be shared with the world only then. Atwood will be the first contributor to this project.
She received two Governor General’s Awards; one for her book of poetry ‘The Circle Game’ in 1966 and another one in 1985, for her novel, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. She received the St. Lawrence Award for Fiction for her short fiction collection, ‘Dancing Girls’, in the year 1977. She was honored as the ‘Humanist of the Year’ by the American Humanist Association in 1987. Her 1996 novel, ‘Alias Grace’, a murder fiction inspired by actual events won her the Canadian Giller Prize and she was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize, 1996 Governor General’s Award and 1997 Orange Prize for Fiction. In 2000, she was awarded the prestigious Booker Prize for her extraordinary novel, ‘The Blind Assassin’. She is currently the holder of 20 honorary degrees from prestigious universities around the world including Harvard University. Her other honors are the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Franz Kafka Prize, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards.
She has an estimated net worth of around $20 million which she earned from her professional writing career. She is currently the Chairman and CEO of Syngrafii Corporation, holder of various patents to LongPen technology. Her average salary is still unknown. Information regarding her cars, houses, businesses and other assets are still under review.
Atwood married Jim Polk in 1968 but the marriage lasted for only five years. They got divorced in 1973. Afterward, she got involved in a relationship with a fellow novelist, Graeme Gibson and their daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, was born in 1976. She currently lives with Graeme Gibson and their daughter in Canada. At present, there is a Margaret Atwood Society, a Margaret Atwood Newsletter, and an ever-increasing number of scholars studying and teaching her work around the globe.
She has a height of 5 ft. 4 inches But, information regarding Margaret Atwood’s other body measurements, shoe size, dress size, are not available. She has a straight sexual orientation.