The Handmaid's Tale

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She has 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.

A contemporary classic… the book serves as a chilling reminder of what women have experienced

Game-changing… gains more significance with each passing year

The Handmaid’s Tale… still absolutely grips. It also feels every bit as urgent today

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. Her most recent publications are the poetry collections Dearly and Paper Boat; Burning Questions , a selection of essays; Old Babes in the Wood , a volume of short stories; and Book of Lives , her memoir.

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 has a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and another one in Classical Studies. Also an MA in Creative Writing and another MA in Classics. She's an award-winning novelist, broadcaster, TV producer and videogames creator. She has worked in technology startups for more than 20 years, since the time when people in tech still felt utopian about "making the world a better place". Which now makes her feel slightly embarrassed about her naivety. She is the author of the bestselling, multi-award-winning The Power, which was chosen as a book of the year by both Bill Gates and Barack Obama and became a TV series for Amazon Prime. Her other books include The Future, The Liars’ Gospel, The Lessons and Disobedience She is the co-creator of the fitness game and audio adventure Zombies, Run! which has more than ten million players. Naomi writes and presents Human Intelligence, a history of thinking on BBC Radio 4.