1960s - double persephone • the circle game • expeditions • speeches for doctor frankenstein • the edible woman • the animals in that country • the journals of susanna moodie | 1970s - procedures for underground • power politics • surfacing • you are happy • lady oracle • dancing girls and other stories • two-headed poems • life before man | 1980s - murder in the dark • true stories • bluebeard's egg and other stories • interlunar • the handmaid’s tale • the animals in that country • selected poems 1965–1975 • cat’s eye | 1990s - wilderness tips • good bones and simple murders • the robber bride • morning in the burned house • alias grace • the blind assassin | 2000s - negotiating with the dead: a writer on writing • oporornis maledetta • moving targets: writing with intent 1982–2004 • orix and crake • the tent • the penelopiad • the door • the year of the flood | 2010s - in other worlds: SF and the human imagination • maddaddam • stone mattress: nine tales • scribbler moon • the heart goes last • hag-seed • dearly | 2020s - the testaments • dearly • burning questions: essays and occasional pieces 2004–2021 •
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty novels including 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 and in 2022 Burning Questions, a collection of essays, was a Sunday Times bestseller.
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 membebutton 4 6r 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. In 2015 she handing her manuscript Scribbler Moon to the Future Library, which was preceded by Stone Mattress: Nine Tales in 2014 and followed by The Heart Goes Last in 2015.
1960s - double persephone • the circle game • expeditions • speeches for doctor frankenstein • the edible woman • the animals in that country • the journals of susanna moodie | 1970s - procedures for underground • power politics • surfacing • you are happy • lady oracle • dancing girls and other stories • two-headed poems • life before man | 1980s - murder in the dark • true stories • bluebeard's egg and other stories • interlunar • the handmaid’s tale • the animals in that country • selected poems 1965–1975 • cat’s eye | 1990s - wilderness tips • good bones and simple murders • the robber bride • morning in the burned house • alias grace • the blind assassin | 2000s - negotiating with the dead: a writer on writing • oporornis maledetta • moving targets: writing with intent 1982–2004 • orix and crake • the tent • the penelopiad • the door • the year of the flood | 2010s - in other worlds: SF and the human imagination • maddaddam • stone mattress: nine tales • scribbler moon • the heart goes last • hag-seed • dearly | 2020s - the testaments • dearly • burning questions: essays and occasional pieces 2004–2021 •
Title: The Handmaid’s Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
First Published: 1985, McClelland and Stewart (Canada)
Present Library Copy: Vintage Classics edition, 2010
Language: English
Genre: Speculative fiction
Place of Writing: West Berlin and Toronto, Canada (1984-1985)
Pages: 328
ISBN: 978-1-784-87967-9
Notes | Atwood’s speculative fiction classic, written in the early 1980s, reflects anxieties about totalitarianism, reproductive rights, and authoritarianism. A pivotal early work that laid the foundation for her later contribution to the Future Library.
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 whom her future hangs.
“A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist”
Bernardine Evaristo
Bernardine Evaristo