- Save £2.00
- In stock online
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.
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 magic realism such as her Booker Prize winning novel The Blind Assassin and chilling dystopian visions including her Oryx and Crake sequence. Read more
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781784708238
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 477 g
Dimensions: 222 x 144 x 31 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
"Compulsively readable" - Daily Telegraph
"Out of a narrative shadowed by terror, gleam sharp perceptions, brilliant intense images and sardonic wit" - Peter Kemp, 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" - Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Listener
"The images of brilliant emptiness are one of the most striking aspects of this novel about totalitarian blindness...the effect is chilling" - Linda Taylor ,Sunday Times
Margaret Atwood
You may also be interested in...
“The Handmaid's Tale”
It has taken me a long time to get round to reading this but I am so very glad I did.
I was completely engrossed very early on. I loved Atwood’s writing style as well as the fragmented nature of the story itself,...
More
“Quite Simply, A Really Great Read”
It's actually quite difficult for me to write a review about this book, because I can't actually pinpoint exactly what I loved about it, I just know I did. Atwood proves yet again that her ability to simply... More
“The Handmaid's Tale”
Some of the finest prose ever written, with lines of thought you wish you could think, a very rare book where the narrator actually challanges you to keep up, not only with her social situation but her view upon it,... More
Please sign in to write a review