'The Handmaid's Tale' Author talks Politics After Her Book Gets Set For A TV Series Production

by Rana Asfour

Back in April, American Entertainment company, Hulu, announced  a straight-to-series order for 'The Handmaid’s Tale', a drama from MGM Television starring Elisabeth Moss (Peggy from Mad Men). According to the book's author, Margaret Atwood, production is scheduled to start in September and viewers will get to see it on screens sometime in 2017.

In a recent candid interview with Grant Munroe published online at LitHub.com, Atwood discusses the reaction to her novel's release back in 1985, written as a stand against the radical religious movement gaining strength within the American Right, describing the international reception of the novel as 'Interesting'.

'The English', she says, 'who had already had their religious civil war, said, “Jolly good yarn.” The Canadians in their nervous way, said, “Could it happen here?” And the Americans said, “How long have we got?”

When asked what she thought of today's politics with regards to how far it had allowed women to forge ahead citing recent Republican Party Nominee Donald Trump's comments on women, Atwood described Trump's style as 'sort of old-style, 1950s-beauty-contest stuff, rather than religious-right-fundamentalist-puritan stuff'. For full interview on these views as well as her obsession with flying cats, click HERE.

'The Handmaid’s Tale' 1990 movie adaptation starred Natasha Richardson along with Faye Dunaway and Aidan Quinn. The film from Cinecom/Bioskop was directed by Volker Schlondorff on a script by Harold Pinter.

​The book won the 1985 Governor General's Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987; it was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. It has been adapted for the cinema, radio, opera, and stage. According to Wikipedia, 'The Handmaid's Tale' has never gone out of print since its first publication in 1985.

About the book:
​'The Handmaild's Tale' is Atwood's dystopian novel is set in a future North America in which a totalitarian Christian theocracy (Republic of Gilead) has replaced the American government.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now. For more on the book, click HERE.