Description

** THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER **

Discover the dystopian novel that started a phenomenon.

Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford – her assigned name, Offred, means ‘of Fred’. She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs.

‘A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist’ Bernadine Evaristo

‘As relevant today as it was when Atwood wrote it’ Guardian

Publisher Review

“Compulsively readable” * Daily Telegraph * “Out of a narrative shadowed by terror, gleam sharp perceptions, brilliant intense images and sardonic wit” — Peter Kemp * Independent * “The Handmaid’s Tale is both a superlative exercise in science fiction and a profoundly felt moral story” — Angela Carter “Moving, vivid and terrifying. I only hope it’s not prophetic” — Conor Cruise O’Brien * The Listener * “The images of brilliant emptiness are one of the most striking aspects of this novel about totalitarian blindness…the effect is chilling” — Linda Taylor * Sunday Times *