Margaret Atwood on what finally made her agree to write a memoir

NPR's Book of the Day

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Best-selling author Margaret Atwood says she originally rejected the idea of writing a memoir. But she warmed up to the idea after she began to think of a memoir as a recollection of “stupid things you did, near-death events, catastrophes, and surprising highlights and jokes.” Now, at age 85, Atwood is out with Book of Lives. In today’s episode, she joins NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer for a conversation that touches on the difference between memoir and biography, Canadian identity, and writing from the perspective of an “Inner Advice Columnist.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Margaret Atwood is on the pod today.
0:07.3	She's got a memoir out titled Book of Lives, and she had this wide range in conversation with NPR's
0:12.9	Sasha Fifer, where they get into her rough experiences in school growing up, global politics,
0:19.5	and how Canadian writers get treated differently
0:22.7	from American ones.
0:24.2	And what's interesting is that they open the conversation talking about the difference
0:28.7	between a memoir and an autobiography.
0:31.3	And Atwood says, a memoir is the stuff you remember.
0:34.8	But listening to Atwood revisit various moments in her life. It's clear that it's not
0:39.6	just what you remember, but how you remember those events that help shape the narrative that is your
0:45.5	own life. More after the break. Margaret Atwood is one of the world's best-selling authors. She's
0:53.0	published dozens of works over the last seven
0:55.1	decades, and her famous 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale got new relevance as a recent popular TV series.
1:03.0	Now, at age 85, she's written a memoir scheduled for release this week. It has a striking cover,
1:10.0	a portrait shot of her in a bold,
1:12.7	red pink, collared dress. One red-gloved finger is held to her red lipstick lips as if to say,
1:20.5	speak no evil. But when Adwood was first asked to write a memoir, her initial response was no.
1:26.9	I wrote a book. I wrote a second book, I wrote another book, dead boring.
1:31.5	Who wants to read about someone sitting in a desk messing up blank sheets of paper?
1:36.3	When I spoke with Edward recently, I asked her what finally made her say yes.
1:40.1	They wore me down.
1:43.2	I thought about the difference between a memoir and a biography and an autobiography.
	...

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