Registry of Existential Status
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Status record

Margaret Atwood Writer

SPLITS INTO FIVE, ALL DEMAND EDITS

Are there several of her? Yes, and they have minuted the disagreement.

Existence confidence provisional
A generated photo of an anonymous stranger. It is not the person named.
Margaret Atwood sorts the recycling on a park bench in Copenhagen, signing each envelope with a biro from behind her ear.
Location
Roundabout verge, Milton Keynes, under a gazebo marked Committee Stage
Currently
Chairing five rival drafts of a novel, simultaneously
Last confirmed sighting
Third tea break of a meeting nobody called, Tuesday
Observations
Can sign a book in Toronto while standing slightly to the left of Bedfordshire.

There are now five of her, seated on folding chairs on a roundabout verge in Milton Keynes. Each is holding a biro and a different opinion on how The Blind Assassin should have ended. A passing cyclist counted them twice and got five both times.

A mediator brought flapjacks and a vote, but all five abstained on principle and then voted anyway, separately. A LongPen was set up to sign a compromise, though it produced five signatures, each slightly sharper than the last. Attempts to merge them have stalled over the title.

Her statement was relayed by a heron standing on the verge, which delivered it in a flat, level tone. It said she is perfectly well, that she is outnumbered only by herself, and that the heron has been spelling Oryx wrongly.

Guidance for the public

Address letters to all five and expect separate replies, possibly with corrections.

Actual status (not satire) No death recorded as of 22 October 2026. Born 18 November 1939. Source: Wikidata

E&OE. The Registry accepts no liability for misclassification, temporal displacement or loss of personhood arising from this record. Photographs are computer-generated approximations and almost guaranteed to show a different person entirely.