- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 8 2000 01.06 GMT
Atwood won the £21,000 prize for her tenth novel, The Blind Assassin, beating five other shortlisted authors.
This year's competition was regarded as unprecedented because there was initially no clear favourite.
The prize administrator, Martyn Goff, said: "In 30 years, there hasn't previously been a time when I have felt unable to forecast a winner. This year any of the six could win."
A total of 120 books were submitted for consideration in April. After six months the panel announced a shortlist which included three little-known authors, one of them a first novelist.
Announcing the winner at a ceremony at London's Guildhall last night, Simon Jenkins, chairman of the judges, said: "The Blind Assassin is a complex book that works on many different levels. Far reaching, dramatic and structurally superb, it demonstrates Atwood's immense emotional range, as well as her poet's eye for both telling detail and psychological truth.
"The book demonstrates the mature pessimism of age and does so brilliantly."
Ms Atwood said in a brief speech of thanks at the awards ceremony: "This is not just about one book. Somewhere out there is an unknown writer who will write the next Booker prize winner."
The novel features the elderly Iris Chase Griffen reviewing her life and, in particular, her relationship with her sister Laura, whose premature death in the 1940s affords her iconic status as the author of a scandalous novel.
