Author Atwood opens up about her heart condition

Margaret Atwood has shared several details about her long-time heart condition.

- ANNABEL NUGENT

The 85-year-old author of The Handmaid’s Tale and Cat’s Eye opened up about her health in her new memoir, Book of Lives.

Writing about her experience of Covid-19, the Canadian author said that she contracted the virus more than once. “It was unpleasant, but it had no lasting effects,” she wrote.

At the same time, however, Atwood developed a “parallel ailment” concerning her heart, which she called “a galloping atrial fibrillation”. Atrial fibrillation is a heart arrhythmia that causes an irregular heartbeat.

“I'd had an irregular heartbeat since the age of 12 - nothing to worry about, I was told, though it was sometimes annoying,” she wrote. “Now I’d developed galloping atrial fibrillation, a progressive condition that can’t be cured. At first, medication controlled it a bit, though, over time, not nearly enough.”