The Handmaid's Tale Book

A classic work of feminist fiction, a frighteningly real dystopia that speaks afresh to every new generation of readers. A chair, a table, a lamp. Above, on the  white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the centre of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in a face where the eye has been taken out. There must have been a chandelier, once. They’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to. Offred lives in The Republic of Gilead, to some a utopian vision of the future, a place of safety, a place where everyone has a purpose, a function. But The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit and astute perception. ‘This novel seems ever more vital in the present day, where women in many parts of the world live similar lives, dictated by biological determinism and misogyny.’ – The Guardian ‘It's hard to believe it is 25 years since it was first published, but its freshness, its anger and its disciplined, taut prose have only grown more admirable in the intervening years.’ – The Independent Widely regarded as one of the world’s leading writers, Margaret Atwood is an author, essayist, poet and activist whose inventive and diverse literary output ranges widely and deeply from feminist classics such as The Handmaid’s Tale and The Edible Woman to complex blends of Science Fiction and reality such as her Booker Prize winning novel The Blind Assassin and chilling dystopian visions like Oryx and Crake. Read more