Books

Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ sequel due out next year

‘The Testaments’ is set 15 years after Offred’s final scene in The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood: “Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.”

Wed Nov 28 2018 - 15:38

Margaret Atwood has written a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, to be published next September.

The Testaments is set 15 years after Offred’s final scene in The Handmaid’s Tale and is narrated by three female characters. It will be published on September 10th, 2019 by Chatto & Windus.

Atwood said: “Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.”

Becky Hardie, deputy publishing director of Chatto & Windus, said: “As a society, we’ve never needed Margaret Atwood more. The moment the van door slams on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the most brilliantly ambiguous endings in literature. I cannot wait to find out what’s been going on in Atwood’s Gilead – and what that might tell us about our own times.”

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Richard Cable, managing director of Vintage, said: “Very few novels manage to speak to new generations of readers around the world in the way in which The Handmaid’s Tale clearly does. Publication of The Testaments is going to be the kind of global publishing event we don’t see very often, and we are all hugely excited at the prospect of bringing Margaret Atwood’s new book to her millions of readers.”

First published in 1985 by Jonathan Cape, The Handmaid’s Tale was shortlisted for the 1986 Booker Prize and is an A-level curriculum text in Britain. Eight million copies have been sold globally in the English language.

When Donald Trump was elected in November 2016, handmaids became a symbol of the movement against him, standing for female empowerment and resistance in the face of misogyny and the rolling back of women’s rights around the world. Last year the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale starring Elisabeth Moss and Joseph Fiennes launched on Channel 4, and was nominated for 18, and won 6, Emmy Awards across two series. A third series is in production. The Testaments is not connected to the television adaptation.