Margaret Atwood to receive rare honour at investiture ceremony

Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood is to receive an honour at a royal investiture at Windsor Castle.

The Canadian author will be awarded an Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature at the ceremony on Friday.

Atwood will become one of 62 people currently granted the award given for achievements in the arts, literature, science and politics.

The order is limited to only 65 people at a time, and the author will become the third Canadian on the list.

It is mostly given to British citizens but is also infrequently awarded to people from Commonwealth nations.

Other current members of the order include Dame Maggie Smith,  former Chancellor George Osborne and naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

The prolific author of more than 40 works, who began as a poet in the 1960s, was recently widely praised for her novel The Testaments.

Atwood was jointly awarded the Booker Prize for The Handmaid’s Tale sequel along with British author Bernardine Evaristo, who explored the lives of black women in her work Girl, Woman, Other.

In total, 60 people will receive royal honours at the ceremony on Friday.

James Beveridge, master blender at Johnnie Walker whisky will receive an OBE for services to the Scotch Whisky industry.

Ian Spencer, premier sous chef of the royal household, will be made a member of the Royal Victorian Order, an honour given to people for distinguished personal service to the monarch.