The handmaid’s tale

Description

By Margaret Atwood

The Republic of Gilead has overthrown the government of the United States and rebuilt New England as a theocracy. Fertility has collapsed, and the few women still able to bear children have been stripped of their names, their money and their right to read, and assigned to the households of the ruling Commanders.

Offred is one of them. She remembers a husband, a daughter and a job of her own; now she is permitted two walks a day and one function. Told in her guarded, watchful voice, the novel traces how quickly an ordinary life can be legislated away, and how stubbornly the wish for freedom survives it.

First published 1985