Booker jury’s vow of silence over Atwood’s secret sequel
Follow-up to acclaimed Handmaid’s Tale makes shortlist, but is shrouded in mystery until next week
WHEN announcing the Booker Prize shortlist, it is customary for the judges to talk about the merits of each novel. But in the case of Margaret Atwood’s new book, they have taken a vow of silence.
The Testaments is Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, and is cloaked in such secrecy that the Booker Prize jury could not even tell friends or family that they were reading it.
Before receiving one of the few manuscripts in existence, they were required to sign “ferocious” non-disclosure agreements. Each was given a copy in which the pages were watermarked with their name.
“It falls to me to not tell you about
The Testaments,” said Peter Florence, chair of the judging panel, as he introduced the six shortlisted books.
“I should say there is a strange pleasure in knowing the secret of this publishing juggernaut, coupled with an exquisite agony in not being able to share anything about it.”
All he could say was that Atwood has written “a savage and beautiful novel” for our times. “The bar is set unusually high for Atwood, and she soars over it,” he said. Being able to read the book at all was “an extraordinarily complicated process”, Mr Florence explained.
All that is known about The Testaments is that it is set 15 years after the final scene in The Handmaid’s Tale and features “explosive testaments from three female narrators”. Advance copies are being sent out to reviewers on Friday, and the book will have a UK release at midnight on Monday. Bookmakers made The Testaments favourite to win the prize. The other shortlisted books are Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellman; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo; An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma; Quichotte by Salman Rushdie; and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak.
Afua Hirsch, one of the judges, described reading The Testaments.
“I kept it in a safe place and didn’t advertise to friends that I had it. We were left under no doubt of the importance that the manuscript should not be seen by anyone,” she said.
Xiaolu Guo, another judge, said her Chinese family had seen the manuscript – but only because they had twice answered the door to a courier who refused to hand it over to them.
When she finally received her copy, the family members – who do not speak English – asked what this mysterious package was.
“I said the name, and they’d never heard of it,” she laughed.
Atwood won the Booker Prize in 2000 with The Blind Assassin. This is her sixth nomination. Rushdie is also a previous winner, for Midnight’s Children in 1981.
Rushdie’s new novel, Quichotte, is a retelling of Don Quixote. Liz Calder, his former publisher, is one of this year’s judges, but she said there was no favouritism at play.
“I haven’t published Rushdie for 30 years. So that isn’t an ongoing relationship. It’s barely even a friendship,” she said.
The winning book will be announced on Oct 14.
‘I kept it in a safe place and didn’t advertise to friends that I had it’