The author of 'The Handmaid's Tale' is Margaret Atwood, a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. Atwood has published more than 40 books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and her work has been translated into over 50 languages. She is best known for her dystopian novel 'The Handmaid's Tale', which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987 and was adapted into a television series in 2017.