Canadian writer wins PEN Pinter Prize 2016

12:06 - 01 July 2016

Margaret Atwood

Booker prize-winning Canadian author and environmental campaigner Margaret Atwood, has been awarded the PEN Pinter Prize.

Booker prize-winning Canadian author and environmental campaigner Margaret Atwood, has been awarded the PEN Pinter Prize, which awards writers from “Britain, the Republic of Ireland, or the Commonwealth” who champion free speech.

The famed poet, novelist, and Future Library Project participant, best known for The Handmaid’s Tale and MaddAddam, is “honoured and humbled” to receive the award, established in 2009 in memory of Nobel Laureate playwright Harold Pinter.

The 76-year-old author, as a recipient of the Pinter Prize will be responsible for helping to choose the recipient of the International Writer of Courage prize, which goes to writers who have faced and ought persecution.

She’ll receive the award on October 13, at a ceremony held at the British Library, in London.

Former winners of the Pinter Prize include James Fenton, Salman Rushdie, Tom Stoppard, Carol Ann Duffy, David Hare, Hanif Kureishi, and Tony Harrison.