The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid's Tale (Hardcover)
Staff Reviews
Margaret Atwood brings us back to the Republic of Gilead 15 years after the conclusion of The Handmaid’s Tale, when the republic is beginning to unravel. Three women reveal current events in Gilead as the republic weakens from within; two are residents, the third is a Canadian woman whose ties to Gilead are revealed as the narrative winds down. Very much a cautionary tale, The Testaments rings true for our times. Margaret Atwood has been awarded the 2019 Booker Prize for The Testaments, a prize she shares with Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other.
~ Eight Cousins
— From Holiday Picks 2019
Fans of The Handmaid’s Tale have waited 33 years to find out what happens next in Gilead. Written from the perspective of Aunt Lydia (returning from the first book); Agnes, a young woman living in Gilead; and Daisy, a young woman living in Canada. The Testaments takes the reader back for a deeper look at life in Gilead and brings us forward to a time fifteen years after The Handmaid’s Tale.
The novel was a joint winner of the 2019 Man Booker Prize, alongside Bernardine Evaristo's novel Girl, Woman, Other.
— From EileenMore than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.
Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
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.
—People
“Margaret Atwood’s powers are on full display . . . Everyone should read The Testaments.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A fast, immersive narrative that’s as propulsive as it is melodramatic.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“The Testaments is worthy of the literary classic it continues. That’s thanks in part to Atwood’s capacity to surprise, even writing in a universe we think we know so well.”
—USA Today
“The women of Gilead are more fascinating than ever.”
—NPR
“There may be no novelist better suited to tapping the current era’s anxieties than Margaret Atwood.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Powerful, revealing, and engaging.”
—Boston Globe
“A rare treat . . . a corker of a plot, culminating in a breathless flight to freedom.”
—Laura Miller, Slate.com