The Handmaid's Tale

1985 Atwood, Margaret [Eleanor] (b. 1939). The Handmaid’s Tale. Toronto, ON, Canada: McClelland and Stewart. U.S. ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1986. Rpt. New York: Anchor Books/Penguin, 2017, with a new “Introduction” by the author (xiii-xix). There is a graphic novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. The Graphic Novel. Art & Adaptation by Renée Nault. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2019. An opera, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Poul Ruders was premiered by the Royal Danish Opera in 2000; the Minnesota Opera gave it its North American premier in 2003. Also made into a 1990 film directed by Volker Schlöndorff with a screenplay by Harold Pinter (1930-2008); and a 2013 ballet by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet choreographed by Lila York with music by James MacMillan. A TV series of the novel adapted by Bruce Miller was broadcast on Hulu in 2017. That series ended just before the “Epilogue” of the novel. The second season, broadcast in 2017, begins after the novel ends. Atwood consulted on the series. An audible book is available as The Handmaid’s Tale: Special Edition. Np: Audible Studios, 2017 narrated by Claire Danes and others and with addition material by Atwood. Can, PSt

Dystopia of the  right in power set in the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, a theocracy that sees all women as inferior, whose primary purpose is to produce children, and fertile women are a valuable commodity. The novel ends with Historical Notes from “The Twelfth Symposium on Gilead Studies.” 2019 Atwood, The Testaments is a sequel that begins early in the history of Gilead. Canadian female author.