The Testaments: A Novel

Description

THE NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

‘The Testaments is Atwood at her best . . . To read this book is to feel the world turning’ – Anne Enright

The Republic of Gilead is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, two girls with radically different experiences of the regime come face to face with the legendary, ruthless Aunt Lydia. But how far will each go for what she believes?

And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light. When the van door slammed on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her – freedom, prison or death. With The Testaments, the wait is over. Margaret Atwood’s sequel picks up the story 15 years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead. ‘Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.’ Margaret Atwood

Reviews

“Thrilling and blistering” ― Daily Telegraph

“An incredible follow-up” ― the Sun

“Gripping, pacy and beautifully written” — Justine Jordan ― Guardian

“Finding hope in a hopeless place, this is everything The Handmaid’s Tale fans wanted and more. Prepare to hold your breath throughout, and to cry real tears at the end. My book of the year” — Kayleigh Dray ― Stylist

“The Testaments is Atwood at her best, in its mixture of generosity, insight and control. The prose is adroit, direct, beautifully turned. All over the reading world, the history books are being opened to the next blank page and Atwood’s name is written at the top of it. To read this book is to feel the world turning” — Anne Enright ― Guardian

“I gobbled it down… Atwood has an incredible intellectual nimbleness that challenges us constantly and poses the question that lies like a pearl inside the shell of this frighteningly readable novel, “Before you sit in judgement, how would you behave in Gilead?”” — Allison Pearson ― Sunday Telegraph

“No one needs another recommendation for The Testaments and still I have to say how thrilling it is when a book manages to exceed all expectations. How did she manage to make darkness feel so effortless? How did she think to inject humour where no humour should exist? Because she’s Margaret Atwood, and she can do anything” — Ann Patchett

“A cracker: urgent, moving and as tense as any thriller… there’s a darkly rebellious humour, ingenious wordplay and, of course, chillingly timely warnings. Atwood is long overdue a Nobel” — Hepzibah Anderson ― Mail on Sunday

“At its heart, this gripping novel is a rallying call for action… In Atwood’s world, resistance is never futile — Mernie Gilmore” ― Daily Express

“The must-read novel of the year — a perfect gift for bookworms and fans of the TV series” ― Sunday Telegraph

Author Biography

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.

Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.