Margaret Atwood On The Enduring Resonance Of 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Handmaids attend the premiere of Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale" in Hollywood. EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES HULU hide caption
Handmaids attend the premiere of Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale" in Hollywood.
EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES HULUWhat right does the state have to control a woman's mind, her life and her body?
That debate continues today, fueled by a literary masterpiece that has not gone out of print since it debuted in the 80s. Ask some fans what they think of The Handmaid's Tale, and they answer with a mix of reverence and revulsion: reverence for the gripping tale by Margaret Atwood, and revulsion at the parallels they see in today's times.
We'll never know how many people have seen themselves in Offred, the live-in slave used to bear children in a totalitarian state crippled by infertility. Offred's tale has spawned a movie, an Emmy-winning television series and a cultural conversation about America's future.
Perhaps state-sanctioned slavery and using women as breeding stock sounds fantastical, but we've done it before. Who's to say we could not do it again?
Atwood is still thinking about what could happen, in Offred's world and ours. Her new novel is a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, set 15 years later. It's called The Testaments.
We spoke with Atwood about the sequel, and were also joined by Bruce Miller, the creator of the television adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale.
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