Man Booker-winning novelist Margaret Atwood explains how her dystopian visions of future are always inspired by the genuine world
Listen to Margaret Atwood on the Guardian books podcast
The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a post-crisis US twisted by religious fervour into a totalitarian theocracy. In the MaddAddam trilogy,religion is a political tool used by hypocrites for individual gain. In The Blind Assassin, one character thinks, and “Gods always come in handy,they justify nearly anything.” In the light of this running commentary on organised religion, it is ironic that Margaret Atwood delivers her Guardian Live talk in a church – an irony that is not lost on the author. As members of the audience line up to ask questions, and she eyes them with her specific brand of formidable twinkliness. “Testify, she calls to them, in her dry, and Canadian drawl. “Testify and repent!”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com