Historical Echoes and Dystopian Realities in 'The Handmaid's Tale'

For the twelfth episode in our Great Political Fictions re-release, David discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), her unforgettable dystopian vision of a future American patriarchy. Where is Gilead? When is Gilead? How did it happen? How can it be stopped? From puritanism and slavery to Iran and Romania, from demography and racism to Playboy and Scrabble, this novel takes the familiar and the known and makes them hauntingly and terrifyingly new.

Tomorrow: Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty

Find out more about Past Present Future on our new website www.ppfideas.com where you can also join PPF+ to get bonus episodes and ad-free listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices