Novel
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood · 1985
Synopsis
Gilead, on the former territory of the United States, after a coup by fundamentalists who have killed the president and Congress. Pollution and nuclear accidents have caused the birth rate to fall; those who can still bear children are requisitioned, renamed after the man to whom they are entrusted, and subjected each month to a ceremony in the presence of the wife. Offred remembers a life before: a job, a bank account, a husband, a daughter. Then she learns that a resistance exists.
Context
Begun in West Berlin in the spring of 1984, in a city still cut in two by a wall, the novel sets a theocratic republic on American soil; its author had imposed a rule on herself, to include no practice that had not already existed somewhere in history, and kept a file of press cuttings in support. The book was adapted for the cinema in 1990, for the opera in 2000, as a ballet in 2013 and as a television series in 2017, and the red and white costumes of the handmaids have become a sign at demonstrations in many countries. A sequel appeared in 2019.
Who it is for
A first-person novel, followed by an academic epilogue, the “historical notes”, which casts a different light on the story.
Prizes and reception
Governor General's Award in 1985 and Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987, Booker finalist; translated into more than forty languages.
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