Unless scientists discover a way to keep humans alive for an extra hundred years (or if it turns out the movie Cocoon is based in fact), anyone breathing right now will never get a chance to read Margaret Atwood’s unpublished manuscript for the Future Library project.
The brainchild of Scottish artist Katie Paterson, the Future Library is essentially a time capsule of literature. According to the Guardian, Paterson started the project by planting a forest of 1,000 trees outside Olso. Each year, an invited writer will contribute an unread, unpublished manuscript to be stored in a special room at an Oslo library until 2114. At that point, the trees will be cut down to produce paper for the collected works, which will then be printed and made available to the public.
Atwood told the Guardian that writing a story for future readers was a “pleasure.” She said, “You don’t have to be around for the part when if it’s a good review the publisher takes credit for it and if it’s a bad review it’s all your fault.”