Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood has been named the fourth recipient of the British Book Award for Freedom to Publish.

The award, presented in partnership with the nonprofit Index on Censorship, honours an individual who has demonstrated “exceptional commitment to championing reading and free expression.” Previous recipients are Georgian-Russian author Boris Akunin, novelist Salman Rushdie, and HarperCollins publishing director Arabella Pike.

Atwood was named the recipient of this year’s award at The British Book Awards ceremony in London on May 12. The awards, also known as the Nibbies, have been awarded since 1990 and are administered by British trade magazine The Bookseller.  

In a video acceptance speech, Atwood said she was honoured to receive the award, and spoke about the increasing importance of freedom of speech in the present moment.

“I cannot remember a time during my own life, when words themselves felt under such threat. Political and religious polarisation, 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 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. And I wish you a great big sackful of good luck.”

Other winners of the 2025 British Book Awards include American novelist Percival Everett, who won author of the year and fiction book of the year for his novel James, and the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny who was awarded the prize for overall book of the year for the posthumous memoir, Patriot (translated by Arch Tait and Stephen Dalziel).