Margaret Atwood announces sequel to 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Jon Shelton
November 28, 2018
The Canadian author has said she was inspired to write "The Testaments" by overwhelming demand from fans. The original dystopian novel, released in 1985, has enjoyed phenomenal success in the age of Trump and MeToo.
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Canadian author Margaret Atwood, on Wednesday, announced that she will write a sequel to her critically-acclaimed dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale," to be titled "The Testaments." In a statement released on her publisher's website, Atwood wrote: "Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything!"
In what appeared to be a nod to political developments in the US, Atwood concluded: "The other inspiration is the world we've been living in."
Dystopian patriarchy
"A Handmaid's Tale" is set in a fundamentalist religious patriarchy that has overthrown the government of the United States. Known as the Republic of Gilead, it is located in New England at an unspecified time in the future. The story is told in the first-person voice of one of the women subjugated within the patriarchy. It has strong references to the Old Testament and revolves around the issue of power as relates to politics, society, gender, religion and class.
Atwood herself has said that the novel was intended to show readers that repressive, totalitarian religious movements can very well take hold in democracies like the USA, just as they have in other parts of the world.
She says her study of puritan America while a student at Harvard inspired her to write the novel, adding that in her mind the most plausible guise for the usurpation of power in the US would logically come from a conservative religious movement. She says that hypothesis is based on the fact that America has been steeped in Old Testament religious tradition from its very beginnings — citing the patriarchal structures and harsh intolerance of the Pilgrims.
Protesters in Handmaid's Tale attire have become a common sight around the world, such as here in Philadelphia outside a fundraiser attended by US President Donald Trump Image: picture-alliance/NurPhoto/B. Slabbers
"The Testaments" will pick up 15 years after the original left off and be set in the dystopian society of Gilead. The novel will be published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday and will be on bookshelves on September 10, 2019.
9 must-read books to face the Trump era
US President Donald Trump has made booksellers' dreams come true. North American magazines and blogs have been listing a range of must-read books, in an attempt to understand the new president's behavior.
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'1984'
George Orwell's "1984" pops up repeatedly on lists, with the literary classic opening a window into authoritarian regimes. The dystopian novel delves into what it means to live in a state of tyranny, including omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation. Pictured here is a film still from the 1956 movie adaptation of the novel.
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'The Origins of Totalitarianism'
Hannah Arendt's essay "The Origins of Totalitarianism," originally published in English in 1951, has also garnered considerable attention. Arendt (1906-1975), who fled Nazi Germany, was one of the first political theorists to analyze how totalitarian political movements rose in the early 20th century. A few weeks ago, online bookseller Amazon briefly ran out of the work.
Image: Leo Baeck Institute
'Brave New World'
What college student, or high school student for that matter, hasn't read Aldous Huxley's novel "Brave New World"? The 1932 novel looks at how society is kept in line through psychological manipulation and conditioning.
Image: Chatto & Windus
'The Handmaid's Tale'
Margaret Atwood's feminist dystopia "The Handmaid's Tale" has resurfaced on the nightstands of women participating in political protests, such as at the massive Women's March in Washington in January. The 1985 novel, set in a futuristic New England, looks at the oppression of women in a totalitarian theocracy after the overthrow of the US government. Natasha Richardson starred in a 1990 film.
Image: picture-alliance / Mary Evans Picture Library
'The Man in the High Castle'
In 1962, Philip K. Dick's novel "The Man in the High Castle" envisioned how life could have looked in the United States under totalitarian rule by the victorious Nazi Reich and Japanese Empire. A TV series loosely based on the novel was released in 2015. As part of its advertising campaign, a New York subway was controversially covered in the imagery of the show, seen here.
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'The United States of Fear'
Tom Engelhardt's "The United States of Fear," published in 2011, looks at how fear has fueled massive US investment in the military and national security, only to ultimately gridlock the country.
Image: Haymarket Books
'Things That Can and Cannot Be Said'
"Things That Can and Cannot Be Said" is a collection of essays and conversations by Arundhati Roy and John Cusack, who reflect on their talks with NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden in Moscow in 2014. Surveillance and the nature of the state take center stage in these dialogues and texts, as well as the role of symbols, such as flags, amid patriotism.
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'The Power of the Powerless'
Vaclav Havel's 1978 essay "The Power of the Powerless" offers a compelling alternative to the current gloom-and-doom outlook. The Czech writer and former president expands on methods of resistance among ordinary citizens and how totalitarian regimes can give birth to dissidents.
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'The Captive Mind'
Polish poet and Nobel Prize laureate Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) became an American citizen in 1970. His non-fiction "The Captive Mind" drew on his experiences as a dissident writer in the Eastern Bloc. It is an intellectual reckoning with the allure of Stalinism and the deadening of the mind through Western consumerism.
