Margaret Atwood's latest work to be unseen for 100 years
Future Library project to release authors' works in 2115
Margaret Atwood will be the first writer to submit work for a project called the Future Library, which means that her manuscript will not be released for 100 years.
The award-winning author of MaddAddam, the Blind Assassin and The Handmaid’s Tale, will hand over the text in 2015, according to the industry website The Bookseller.
"I am very honoured, and also happy to be part of this endeavour,” said Atwood in a statement to The Bookseller. “This project, at least, believes the human race will still be around in a hundred years!”
Paper for printing still seedlings
The Future Library is an art project by Scotland’s Katie Paterson and is based out of Oslo. The city has donated a patch of land where Paterson has planted 1,000 trees – slated to be cut down and turned into paper to print the books from 100 authors.
Every year, until 2114, an author will be invited to donate a manuscript. Those works will be printed first on archival paper and will be held in trust in a specially-designed room at a library in Oslo.
“I think it goes right back to that phase of our childhood when we used to bury little things in the backyard, hoping that someone would dig them up, long in the future,” Atwood told The Guardian newspaper.
The 74-year-old Toronto resident also said she didn’t mind having her "new" work released long after her death.
"You don’t have to be around for the part when it’s a good review and the publisher takes credit for it and if it’s a bad review, it’s all your fault."