Book Club:  The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

For February, we have a book that was published in 1996 – and many would say that it’s already become a classic.

Offred lives in The Republic of Gilead. To some, it’s a utopian vision of the future, a place of safety, a place where everyone has a function. But in this terrible place, Offred is a “Handmaid”, a woman whose only function is to breed. If she dissents, she’ll be hanged, or else sent out to die of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state can’t obliterate desires - neither Offred's nor those of the two men on whom her future hangs.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian feminist fiction that critics have called “terrifying” and “compellingly real.” Several TV series have been made, the first of which was screened in the UK on Channel 4 in 2017 (image, above).

Margaret Atwood is Canadian. A highly prolific author, she’s published eighteen novels, nine collections of short stories, eight children's books, and eleven books of non-fiction. Then there are her graphic novels and collections of poetry, as well as other “small press” editions.

This novel was kindly suggested to us by Peter.