Zealot Script

Margaret Atwood, author of such celebrated work as The

by Pete Richmond

 Handmaid’s Tale and The Blind Assassin, is no stranger to success. Her previous awards include the Booker Prize, the Nebula Award and the Arthur C Clarke award and she has been awarded with no less than 24 honourary degrees, including from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard.

The latest award to come her way is nothing less than a Peace Prize, awarded by the German Book Trade. The award saw its first incarnation in 1950 and previous winners have included authors, academics and journalists.

The prize is given to individuals “who have contributed to the realization of peace through their activities in the fields of literature, science and art.”

The administrative board of the award said in a statement, “Atwood has demonstrated a keen political intuition and a deeply perceptive ability to detect dangerous and underlying developments and tendencies.”

The Prize Ceremony is traditionally attended by the President of Germany as well as other leading figures in the fields of diplomacy, culture and the arts in Germany. This year the award will be presented on the 15th October at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Our congratulations go out to Atwood on yet another, well deserved award.