Margaret Atwood: 'I am not a prophet. Science fiction is really about now'

"It was not my fault!" says Margaret Atwood of 2017. But it was certainly her year. Now, just a few weeks into January, she is already making headlines with typically trenchant comments on the #MeToo movement. And, of course, the second season of The Handmaid's Tale returns this spring: she has read the first eight scripts and has "no fingernails left". While the world - and Gilead - show no sign of getting any cheerier, Atwood is seemingly unstoppable.

In March the New Yorker crowned her "the prophet of dystopia" and the TV adaptations of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace has orbited her into an international stardom seldom experienced by novelists. Atwood was a consultant on both productions, and has cameo performances in each: as one of the aunts in The Handmaid's Tale, slapping Elisabeth Moss's Offred round the face, and as "Disapproving Woman" (the sign on her trailer) in Alias Grace. She will be on set in Toronto for the second season soon, again as a consultant, but not in a nasty aunt outfit this time. "Once was enough.

23rd January 2018