Editions

The Handmaid's Tale

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9781784875930

  • Length: 416  Pages

  • Dimensions: 178mm x 26mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 298g

  • RRP: £9.99

The Handmaid's Tale

MOST LOVED. MOST RED. Ten must-read modern classics.

'Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don't let the bastards grind you down.'

Imagine a world where women's bodies are controlled by men. Where society has descended into religious patriarchy and censorship. Where the environment has been destroyed and a powerful few hold the reins to all wealth and freedom. Welcome to Gilead. This is the story of Offred, a Handmaid forced into sexual servitude, in the country once known as the USA.

Atwood's Handmaids have become a symbol of feminist resistance. This masterpiece blurs the boundaries between fiction and news headlines.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY NAOMI ALDERMAN

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9781784875930

  • Length: 416  Pages

  • Dimensions: 178mm x 26mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 298g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • Compulsively readable

    Daily Telegraph

  • The mother of all feminist dystopian novels.

    Red

  • The novel satirises the strain of evangelical puritanism in American culture and the objectification and control of women’s bodies. It is more broadly a contemporary myth of despotic power, and how such power deforms those who are subjected to it.

    Observer

  • One of Atwood’s finest pieces of work serves as a great reminder of what humanity is capable of.

    Red

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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, went back into the bestseller charts with the election of Donald Trump, when the Handmaids became a symbol of resistance against the disempowerment of women, and with the 2017 release of the award-winning Channel 4 TV series. Its sequel, The Testaments, was published in 2019 and was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. 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

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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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