Features

Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale: The Testaments

Since the election of Donald Trump as US President, Handmaids have become a symbol of women’s rights, standing against misogyny. Now, we can reveal that Margaret Atwood is writing a sequel. Here’s what you need to know.

28 November 2018

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood is the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale and is narrated by three female characters.

It’s set 15 years after Offred’s final scene, the moment when the van door slams and readers had no way of knowing what lay ahead.

You can pre-order the book from Waterstones and Amazon.

The inspiration for The Testaments

Talking about the book, Margaret Atwood said:

‘Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in.’

See Margaret Atwood on tour

Margaret Atwood will be on tour from 10 September 2019, including a live broadcast to cinemas around the world on publication day. UK events include London, Newcastle, Manchester, Oxford and Birmingham. Atwood will also visit Dublin.

get your tickets

Iconic cover design

The Testaments will be published worldwide on 10th September 2019, with a double image cover illustrated by Noma Bar and designed by Suzanne Dean at VINTAGE.

The Testaments
- Margaret Atwood
** WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 **

** SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER **
BOOK OF THE YEAR: Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Stylist, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Guardian, The Times, Observer, Red

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian masterpiece, The Handmaid’s Tale, is a modern classic. Now she brings the iconic story to a dramatic conclusion in this riveting sequel.
More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.
Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third voice: a woman who wields power through the ruthless accumulation and deployment of secrets.
As Atwood unfolds The Testaments, she opens up the innermost workings of Gilead as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
‘Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.' Margaret Atwood
pre-order the book

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Features

9 quotes from The Handmaid’s Tale that will teach you about the world

As season 3 of the gripping TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale gets ever closer and publication of the sequel, The Testaments, approaches, we revisit 9 quotes from Marget Atwood’s classic novel that taught us important lessons about humanity.

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Must-reads of 2019: the best new books of the year

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Margaret Atwood: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale is being read very differently now’

Since The Handmaid’s Tale hit TV screens in 2017, Margaret Atwood’s already-prominent profile as a feminist has blazed ever brighter. Here she talks about how the novel came to fruition while she was living in Berlin, speaking up and what’s next for feminism. The sequel to the book The Testaments will publish 2019.