Margaret Atwood wins British Book Award for the Freedom to Publish

Margaret Atwood has been awarded the Freedom to Publish Award at The British Book Awards, held on Monday 12th May at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House in London.

Canadian author Atwood was awarded the gong by Lindsey Hilsum at the ceremony.

Atwood is the author of The Handmaid’s Tale (Vintage), The Blind Assassin (Virago), Oryx and Crake (Virago), and The Testaments (Vintage), among other books. Throughout her career, she has championed reading as an act of resistance, and promoted free speech.

Atwood has been a published author since 1970, writing poetry collections first in her native Canada. Her first novel surfaced in 1972, and she has since written 17 novels, as well as 19 books of poetry, 11 non-fiction works, nine short-story collections, eight children’s books and three graphic novels.

Her latest, Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts (Chatto & Windus), will be published on 4th November 2025.

In a video acceptance speech, Atwood said: “I cannot remember a time during my own life when words themselves felt under such threat. Political and religious polarisation, which appeared to be on the wane for parts of the 20th century, has increased alarmingly in the past decade. The world feels to me more like the 1930s and 1940s at present than it has in the intervening 80 years.

“I have worked as a writer and in my youth in small press publishing for 60-odd years. Those years included the Soviet Union, when samizdat was a dangerous method of publishing. Hand-produced manuscripts were secretly circulated, and bad luck for you if you were caught. [They now include] the recent spate of censorship and book banning, not only in the oppressive countries around the world, but also in the US. [They also include] the attempt to expel from universities anyone who disagrees with the dogmas of their would-be controllers.

“This kind of sentiment is not confined to one extremism or the other – the so-called left or the so-called right. All extremisms share the desire to erase their opponents, to stifle any creative expression that is not propaganda for themselves, and to shut down dialogue. They don’t want a dialogue, they want a monologue. They don’t want many voices, they want only one.”

Now in its fourth year, the Freedom to Publish Award, run in partnership with Index on Censorship, honours an individual who has gone above and beyond in terms of promoting reading and free expression. At a time when the world is turning away from free expression, Atwood’s work helps us understand what is happening to us.

Moreover, the British Book Award for Social Impact has been awarded to Kate Mosse, writer and founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The award is inspired by publisher Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin – which is celebrating 90 years since the launch of the Penguin paperbacks list – whose mission was to widen access to books and democratise reading.

Closing her remarks for those gathered at the ceremony on Monday night, Atwood wished publishers “strength and hope”, adding: “In a free world publishers and booksellers stand for the many. If free governments and free human intelligence are to survive, the guardians and transmitters of words in all their multiplicity must be brave. I wish you strength and hope, and the courage to withstand the mobs on one hand, and the whims of vengeful potentates on the other.”

Hilsum said: “When I first read The Handmaid’s Tale, I thought it was a dystopian fantasy. Then I learned that every idea was based on evidence of how women have been oppressed – it was fiction, but not really. The book was in itself an act of resistance, just one example of how Margaret Atwood has always stood at the forefront of the literary world as a tireless advocate for reading as a form of rebellion. Using her powerful voice and her fame, she has consistently championed justice, fairness and freedom of speech – principles that feel more vital today than ever before.”

Other books recognised at The British Book Awards 2025 reflected the urgency of international concerns in the minds of both writers and readers this year. Patriot by former Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was chosen by judges as Overall Book of the Year, and was accepted by his widow Yulia Navalnaya.

Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller and chair of judges at The British Book Awards, added: “Books are the visible representation of the values we hold dear – freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom from authoritarianism.

“From east to west, our writers are now challenged, coerced and threatened in ways we thought were being consigned to history. Margaret Atwood and her books stand against that, and we are delighted she has accepted this award at a ceremony that has felt steeped in the politics of the times.”