Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Dua’s Monthly Read for November, is a contemporary classic that continues to resonate with readers decades after its release. First published 40 years ago, it was highly praised as a groundbreaking dystopian feminist novel; today, its warnings about the fragility of women’s rights, the dangers of authoritarianism and the manipulation of truth feel more urgent and relevant than ever. In honour of this milestone anniversary – and the release of Margaret’s highly anticipated memoir, Book Of Lives – we’re celebrating one of the greatest living authors with a selection of five more essential books from her extraordinary body of work...
The Edible Woman (1969)
Margaret’s first novel is groundbreaking – a feminist satire of consumerism, shot through with her sharp surreal humour. It explores those classic ‘Atwood’ themes: women’s identity, societal and gender expectations, ‘madness’ as a poetic device, all in the character of Marian McAlpin an ‘abnormally normal’ young woman. Once Marian is engaged to Peter, things take a strange turn. Her inner self wants something more... and it isn’t food. This is emotional cannibalism – the desire to be consumed – and marriage à la mode, Marian discovers, is something she literally can’t stomach. As with much of Margaret’s work, it’s a scarily prescient book.
Surfacing (1972)
The Virago Modern Classic edition calls this ‘one of the most important novels of the 20th century’. As the daughter of a forest entomologist, Margaret spent much of her childhood on research trips in remote parts of Quebec with her father. The wilderness appears again in the story collection Wilderness Tips, and in an apocalyptic take in the Booker-shortlisted Oryx And Crake. In Surfacing, a nameless young woman’s spiritual journey at her childhood home in the Canadian outback brings her to an animalistic break. Is it madness or mysticism? She is searching for her disappeared father but, when diving deep in the lake, she sheds herself and finds something other. This one is uber-nature writing with teeth.
Alias Grace (1996)
Alias Grace, adapted as a mini-series by Sarah Polley for CBC and Netflix, explores the true-crime story of Grace Marks, a seamstress and domestic worker who at age 16 is convicted of brutally killing her employer Thomas Kinnear and his pregnant lover Nancy Montgomery, in Richmond Hill Ontario in 1843. Grace escapes the gallows and spends her life in prison, and the insane asylum. Atwood wears the form of the Victorian novel beautifully here, and Grace is the enigmatic unreliable narrator with her aliases. Is she innocent or guilty? As always, Margaret weaves her signature themes throughout, quilted together as intricately as Grace’s own needlework.
Paper Boat: New And Selected Poems (1961-2023) (2024)
We’re spoilt to have Margaret’s career-spanning poetry in one essential collection which samples all 14 of her collections so far. “How can one live with such a heart?” she asks, casting her singular spell upon the reader and ferrying us through love, life, death and whatever comes next. Spanning six decades of work – from her earliest beginnings to brand-new poems – Ali Smith called the collection “a bright and cornucopic life force of a book”.
The Testaments (2020)
The patriarchal dystopia of Gilead... is it really gone? Margaret’s long-awaited return to her imagined Republic of The Handmaid’s Tale gives us an electrifying answer. Here, Margaret answers another question that has tantalised readers for decades: what happened to Offred? Fifteen years later we have three testimonies: from the terrifying Aunt Lydia with her secret manuscript ‘The Ardua Hall Holograph’, and in the spoken words of Agnes and Daisy. Margaret’s first Booker win was for The Blind Assassin, and with The Testaments she deservedly shared the prize with Bernadine Evaristo. As fellow Booker-winner Anne Enright wrote, “Perhaps no other writer has managed her own phenomenon with so much grace and skill. The Testaments is Atwood at her best.”
There’s More – Delve Deeper Into The Handmaid’s Tale With The Service95 Book Club...
- BOOKMARK the novels that inspired Margaret Atwood’s vision
- DISCOVER what to read next from Margaret’s back catalogue
- LISTEN to The Handmaid’s Tale playlist, curated by Margaret
- READ Dua’s essay on what reading The Handmaid’s Tale taught her about the world
- EXPLORE what The Handmaid’s Tale tells us about women’s rights today
- MEET the costume designer who brought Gilead to life for the screen
