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The Handmaid's Tale

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9780099511663

  • Length: 336  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 21mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 234g

  • RRP: £8.99

The Handmaid's Tale

** THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER **

Discover the dystopian novel that started a phenomenon before you read the Booker Prize-winning sequel The Testaments.

NOW AN AWARD-WINNING TV SERIES STARRING ELISABETH MOSS

Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford – her assigned name, Offred, means ‘of Fred’. She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs.

Masterfully conceived and executed, this haunting vision of the future places Margaret Atwood at the forefront of dystopian fiction.

‘A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist’ Bernadine Evaristo, author of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER

‘This novel seems ever more vital in the present day’ Observer

READ THE TESTAMENTS, THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING SEQUEL TO THE HANDMAID’S TALE, TODAY

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9780099511663

  • Length: 336  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 21mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 234g

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

  • A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist

    Bernadine Evaristo, author of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER

  • Compulsively readable

    Daily Telegraph

  • Out of a narrative shadowed by terror, gleam sharp perceptions, brilliant intense images and sardonic wit

    Independent

  • The Handmaid's Tale is both a superlative exercise in science fiction and a profoundly felt moral story

    Angela Carter

  • Moving, vivid and terrifying. I only hope it's not prophetic

    The Listener

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About the Author

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade. Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Margaret Atwood

Read more

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Features

‘Dear Next Generation: Thank you for showing up!’ Margaret Atwood answers questions from young activists of today

The author of The Testaments discusses the environment, gender equality and trans rights with some of the world’s leading young campaigners.
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News

Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo jointly awarded 2019 Booker Prize

Two Penguin Random House authors Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo have been jointly named as the winners of this year’s Booker Prize for The Testaments and Girl, Woman, Other respectively
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Features

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.

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