For more than three decades “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been an iconic dystopian representation of a fictional post-America, an America that failed to uphold its own ideals and allowed Christian extremism to take over. And for decades the novel’s author, Margaret Atwood, has refused to write a sequel.
Until now.
“The Testaments,” set 15 years in the future from the original “Handmaid’s Tale” novel, will be released in September, 2019.
In a tweet, Atwood explains she was inspired to write the book in part to answer readers’ questions about the fictional nation she calls “Gilead.” But she notes another inspiration: “the world we’ve been living in.”
What makes her “inspiration” all the more disturbing is what she told The New York Times last year about her process for writing the original book.
“Margaret Atwood’s rule for herself when writing ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was that everything had to be based on some real-world antecedent. And she was able to combine disparate historical events in plausible — and horrific — ways.”
In other words, she must believe there’s plenty of material in the age of Trump for another book.
The sequel will not be related to the TV series, but here’s a promo from season two:
Image: Screenshot via YouTube