Renowned author Margaret Atwood weighs in on U.S. election at Calgary forum [Video]

Margaret Atwood has been called prescient — particularly when it comes to her famous 1985 dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale and the recent rollback of reproductive rights in the United States — but the renowned Canadian author says her predictive powers failed her ahead of last week’s U.S. election, which delivered Donald Trump another White House win.

“I searched. I invoked, ‘Oh God, let it be sun.’ But it was darkness all around,” she said to laughter Tuesday night at a forum hosted by the Alberta Teachers’ Association, Calgary Catholic Local 55 and Calgary Public Local 38.

Calgary’s Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, with more than 2,500 seats, was nearly full for the discussion with Atwood about “democracy, public education and the common good.” She is to speak Wednesday at an event hosted by the Edmonton Public Library about “the importance of freedom of expression.”

Atwood said she hesitates to make blanket statements about what drives the American people …