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Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments Ties for Booker Prize
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Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments Ties for Booker Prize

Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, and Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, were named joint winners of the prestigious Booker Prize. It was only the third tie in the award’s 50-year history. The 79-year-old Atwood became the oldest author to be awarded the prize, while Evaristo became the first Black woman to win. The £50,000 (CAD$83,000) prize was to be split between them..Atwood also became the fourth author to win the Booker Prize twice. She said she was happy to receive it jointly and would donate her half of the prize money to a scholarship for Indigenous students in Canada.

Grace Marks
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Grace Marks

Grace Marks, historical figure (born ca. 1828 in Ulster, Ireland [now Northern Ireland]; date and place of death unknown). Grace Marks was an Irish Canadian maid. She was convicted, along with James McDermott, of the murder of their employer Thomas Kinnear, who was killed along with his housekeeper and mistress Nancy Montgomery in 1843. Marks’s trial was widely publicized in newspapers of the day. Her story has also been told in Susanna Moodie’s Life in the Clearings (1853), as well as in Margaret Atwood’s play The Servant Girl (1974) and her novel Alias Grace (1996). The latter was adapted by Sarah Polley into an award-winning CBC miniseries, starring Sarah Gadon as Marks.

The Testaments, the Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, is Published
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The Testaments, the Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, is Published

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, was launched in rock star fashion with a sold-out appearance by Atwood at the National Theatre in London, England, at 12:00 a.m. It was broadcast live to more than 1,000 theatres around the world. Atwood then embarked on a worldwide promotional tour that included stops in nine Canadian cities. The novel was also shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize a week before it was published. 

Alias Grace
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Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood’s ninth novel, Alias Grace (1996), is a work of historical fiction that centres on the mysterious figure of Grace Marks. She was convicted in 1843 at the age of 16 for the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, a wealthy Scottish Canadian, who was killed along with his housekeeper and mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Alias Grace won the Giller Prize for fiction in 1996. It was also shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award and England’s Booker Prize. In 2017, Sarah Polley adapted Atwood’s novel into a six-part CBC/Netflix miniseries, starring Sarah Gadon as Marks.

Graeme Gibson
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Graeme Gibson

Graeme Gibson, CM, writer, cultural activist, teacher (born 9 August 1934 in London, ON; died 18 September 2019 in London, England). Graeme Gibson was a noted Canadian author and conservationist. His novels Five Legs (1969), Communion (1971), Perpetual Motion (1982) and Gentleman Death (1993) were widely acclaimed. He also published the environmentally conscious The Bedside Book of Birds (2005) and The Bedside Book of Beasts (2009). A committed bird watcher, he helped found the Pelee Island Bird Observatory. He was also instrumental in forming the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Book and Periodical Development Council and the Writers’ Trust of Canada. He was a former president of PEN Canada and the longtime partner of Margaret Atwood.

The Handmaid's Tale
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The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood’s sixth novel, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a chilling dystopian vision of the future. It is set in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian America in which fundamentalist Christians have killed the president and Congress and imposed a puritanical theocracy. The Handmaid's Tale portrays a loveless police state that oppresses women and regulates all aspects of human life with constant surveillance. The novel won the Governor General's Literary Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature. It has sold more than eight million copies in English. The Washington Post’s Ron Charles called it “the most popular and influential feminist novel ever written.” It has been adapted into a feature film, an acclaimed opera, a ballet, an Emmy Award-winning television series and a graphic novel. The Testaments, a highly anticipated sequel written by Atwood, was published in September 2019. It was awarded the Booker Prize in a rare tie with Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other.