We’ve got so much time for… Margaret Atwood
THE HANDMAID’S TALE SEQUEL
WAVE YOUR PLACARDS and throw your pink pussy hats in the air with joy, the literary gods have answered our prayers. Margaret Atwood (below) – author of the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale – has announced she’s writing a sequel. Atwood revealed on Twitter last week that The Testaments will be narrated by three female characters and cover ‘everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead [the novel’s patriarchal society] and its inner workings’. When the TV adaptation hit screens last year, viewers drew uncomfortable parallels between Gilead and current US society. So a sequel couldn’t come at a better time: abortion is still illegal in Northern Ireland, an alleged sexual harasser has just been appointed to the US Supreme Court and a man who wants to cut funding to Planned Parenthood and grab women ‘ by the pussy’ is still in the White House. So bring on the sequel, and may it continue to serve as another way for us to call out sexism and make the message loud and clear: we won’t stay silent.