The Handmaid's Tale

Discover the dystopian novel that started a phenomenon.

Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead. 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.

Review

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

About the Author

Margaret Atwood (Author)
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 shared the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade; in 2022 Burning Questions, a selection of essays, was a Sunday Times bestseller; and in 2023, Old Babes in the Wood, a volume of short stories, was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Atwood is a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, and 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. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Naomi Alderman (Introducer)
Naomi Alderman is the bestselling author of The Power, which won the the Women's Prize for Fiction, as well as Disobedience, The Liars' Gospel, and The Lessons.