The Handmaid’s Tale
- Auteur: Margaret Atwood (Canada)
- Soort boek: dystopische roman uit 1984
- Taal: Engels
- Uitgever: Vintage Classics
- Omvang: 336 pagina’s
- Uitgave: paperback / ebook / luisterboek
- Prijs: £ 9,99
- Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris
Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale review en recensie
- “A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist.” (Bernadine Evaristo)
- “A novel that brilliantly illuminates some of the darker interconnections between politics and sex … Just as the world of Orwell’s 1984 gripped our imaginations, so will the world of Atwood’s handmaid!” (The Washington Post)
- “The story is a chilling exploration of the extreme end of misogyny, where women are reduced to their biological functions, and a critique of religious fundamentalism.” (The Greatest Books)
Flaptekst van de roman van Margaret Atwood uit 1984
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.
De Nederlandse vertaling van de roman heeft als titel Het verhaal van de dienstmaagd.
Margaret Atwood was born on 18 November 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She 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 MaddAdam 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 in that year. On the November 4 in 2025 het book Book of Lives, A Memoir of Sorts wil be published.
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.