Handmaid's tale (Vintage Publishing)

** THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER ** Discover the dystopian novel behind the award-winning TV series before you read the 2019 Booker Prize-winning sequel The Testaments 'I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.' Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States.

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.

Masterfully conceived and executed, this haunting vision of the future places Margaret Atwood at the forefront of dystopian fiction. 'As relevant today as it was when Atwood wrote it...no television event has hit such a nerve...' Guardian READ THE TESTAMENTS, THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING SEQUEL TO THE HANDMAID'S TALE, TODAY "A fantastic, chilling story.

And so powerfully feminist" "Compulsively readable" * Daily Telegraph * "The mother of all feminist dystopian novels." * Red * "The novel satirises the strain of evangelical puritanism in American culture and the objectification and control of women's bodies.

It is more broadly a contemporary myth of despotic power, and how such power deforms those who are subjected to it." * Observer * "One of Atwood's finest pieces of work serves as a great reminder of what humanity is capable of.