I did not anticipate any of this when I was writing the book. Is it entertainment or dire political prophecy? Can it be both?
Revelers dress up as Handmaids on Halloween and also for protest marches-these two uses of its costumes mirroring its doubleness. The book has had several dramatic incarnations, a film (with screenplay by Harold Pinter and direction by Volker Schlöndorff) and an opera (by Poul Ruders) among them. People-not only women-have sent me photographs of their bodies with phrases from The Handmaid’s Tale tattooed upon them, Nolite te bastardes carborundorum and Are there any questions? being the most frequent. It has been expelled from high schools, and has inspired odd website blogs discussing its descriptions of the repression of women as if they were recipes. It has become a sort of tag for those writing about shifts towards policies aimed at controlling women, and especially women’s bodies and reproductive functions: “Like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Here comes The Handmaid’s Tale” have become familiar phrases. It has sold millions of copies worldwide and has appeared in a bewildering number of translations and editions.
The Handmaid’s Tale has not been out of print since it was first published, back in 1985.
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