How does one of the greatest storytellers of our time write her own life? The long-awaited memoir from one of our most lauded and influential cultural figures. ‘Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives,and the one who writes. Though everything written must have passed through their mindsor mindthey are not the same.’ Raised by ruggedly independentscientifically minded parents – entomologist fatherdietician mother – Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadicsometimes isolated (on her eighth birthday: ‘It sounds forlorn. It was forlorn. It gets more forlorn.’)but also thrilling and beautiful. From this unconventional startAtwood unfolds the story of her lifelinking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscapefrom the cruel year that spawned Cat’s Eye to the Orwellian 1980s Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatheringsher magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning pointswe meet poetsbearsHollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel. As we travel with her along the course of her lifemore and more is revealed about her writingthe connections between real life and art – and the workings of one of our greatest imaginations.