Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, published in 1985, is a dystopian novel that imagines the United States ruled by a conservative Christian theocracy. It's currently the best-selling book on Amazon, knocking George Orwell's 1984 to the third spot.
From Washington Post:
Many have argued, though, that Atwood’s novel is one of the more important in our new political climate. As Alex Hern wrote in The Guardian:
Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel is set in a near-future New England following the collapse of America into the authoritarian, theocratic state of Gilead. It was groundbreaking for its treatment of gender, depicting a state in which the advances of feminism have been comprehensively destroyed. Women are considered inferior to men, and their every behaviour is tightly controlled by the state. In particular, their role in reproduction is bound to a strict caste system: abortion is illegal, and fertile women are required to bear children for higher-status women.
Many find this to be a fitting cautionary tale in a new administration that many claim doesn’t respect women’s rights, so much so that more than 1 million people gathered in Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration to show support for a variety of women’s issues.
Im starting to think a handmaids tale predicted life soon for America under a trump presidency
— em (@limecordiaIe) January 25, 2017
This is Afghanistan in 1972. Watch or read Handmaids tale and see how it could happen here so easy under Trump http://pic.twitter.com/DOTbLOffia
— savanna (@savannastc) February 4, 2017
This sounds more and more like the HANDMAIDS TALE https://t.co/ayiZ4e4grC
— L.M. Wasylciw (@L_WASYL) February 5, 2017
Trump threatens to tear apart the separation of church and state. More and more this sounds like the plot of a Handmaids Tale.
— Will C. (@willontheverge) February 5, 2017
Got a feeling 'The Handmaids Tale' might become more realistic than a fiction with Donald trump in power #handmaidstale
— James Bryan (@Bryan31James) January 28, 2017
Hulu is launching a TV series based on The Handmaid's Tale, called My Name is Offred. Here's the trailer: https://youtu.be/jMrDTDEmS4c
Adapted from the classic novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalism in its militarized ‘return to traditional values'. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a Handmaid in the Commander’s household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate the world. In this terrifying society, Offred must navigate between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – all with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.
