Margaret Atwood is often referred to as Canada's greatest living writer. She was born on November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Ontario. She wrote her first story when she was six. Atwood's father, Carl Edmund Atwood, is an entomologist and her mother, Margaret Dorothy Killam Atwood, is a dietitian. In 1945, her family moved to Toronto, where she graduated from high school and afterward attended Victoria College. While there, she studied under Northrop Frye, another famous Canadian author and literary critic, and the poet Jay MacPherson. Upon graduating from college, Atwood won the first of many literary prizes. The E. J. Pratt Medal was awarded to her for her self-published book of poems, Double Persephone. She then went to the United States, where she earned her master's degree at Harvard.

In 1966, Atwood won another prestigious honor, The Governor General's Award, for yet another collection of poetry, The Circle Game. In...