Margaret Atwood wins Freedom to Publish Award at 2025 British Book Awards
The acclaimed Canadian author is recognized for her commitment to free speech
Margaret Atwood has been presented the Freedom to Publish Award as part of the 2025 British Book Awards.
The Freedom to Publish Award, given in partnership with the organization Index on Censorship, honours an individual who champions freedom of expression.
Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale and two-time Booker Prize winner, is an advocate for reading as a way to resist suppression of ideas. In her video acceptance speech, she recognized the importance of conversations and open communication in this particular historical moment.
"I cannot remember a time during my own life, when words themselves felt under such threat," Atwood said. "Political and religious polarization, 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 40s at present than it has in the intervening 80 years."
She also commended the work of publishers and booksellers as people who spread knowledge, fight polarization and foster dialogue.
"In a free world, publishers and booksellers stand for the many," she said. "If free governments and the 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."
Atwood has written fiction, nonfiction, poetry and comics. She began her writing career with poetry, publishing The Circle Game and winning the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry in the late 1960s.
She's since published more than a dozen poetry collections, including The Journals of Susanna Moodie in 1970, Power Politics in 1971 and, most recently, Paper Boat in 2024.
Atwood has won several awards for her work including the Governor General's Literary Award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Writer in the World Prize.
Her other notable books include the novels The Edible Woman, Oryx and Crake and Cat's Eye, the essay collection Burning Questions and the nonfiction work Survival.
Her memoir, Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, will be published in November 2025.
The 2025 British Book Awards also presented major honours to American writer Percival Everett, who won Author of the Year and Fiction Book of the Year for his novel James, and Alexei Navalny whose posthumous memoir Patriot was awarded Overall Book of the Year and Nonfiction Narrative Book of the Year.
The annual awards uplift the book industry, from the authors and illustrators to the booksellers. The complete list of Book of the Year winners is below. The book trade award winners can be found on the British Book Awards website.
- Overall Book of the Year 2025: Patriot by Alexei Navalny
- Author of the Year: Percival Everett
- Illustrator of the Year: Rob Biddulph
- Book of the Year — Fiction: James by Percival Everett
- Book of the Year — Debut Fiction: Butter by Asako Yuzuki
- Book of the Year — Crime & Thriller: Hunted by Abir Mukherjee
- Book of the Year — Pageturner: Faebound by Saara El-Arifi
- Book of the Year — Discover: poyums by Len Pennie
- Book of the Year — NonFiction Lifestyle & Illustrated: What I Ate in One Year by Stanley Tucci
- Book of the Year — Nonfiction Narrative: Patriot by Alexei Navalny
- Book of the Year — Children's Fiction: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hot Mess by Jeff Kinney
- Book of the Year — Children's Non-Fiction: Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back by Isabella Tree, illustrated by Angela Harding
- Book of the Year — Children's Illustrated: Jonty Gentoo: The Adventures of a Penguin by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler
- Book of the Year — Audiobook Fiction: Bunny vs. Monkey by Jamie Smart, narrated by
Ciaran Saward and My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes - Book of the Year — Audiobook Nonfiction: Sociopath by Patric Gagne
