Acclaimed author Margaret Atwood is set to tour Australia in celebration of the global publication of The Testaments, the highly anticipated sequel to her seminal work, The Handmaid’s Tale. Perth fans can catch Atwood at Riverside Theatre on Sunday, March 1, where they can get an insight into her remarkable career, her diverse range of works and why she has returned to the fictional world of Gilead 34 years later.
“I am so happy to be returning to Australia, where I have spent much time in the past, and where readers have always been so warm and welcoming,” Atwood said.
The publication of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985 and the current, Emmy Award-winning television series have created a cultural phenomenon, as handmaids have become a symbol of women’s rights and a protest against misogyny and oppression. In the sequel, Atwood answers the questions that have tantalised readers for decades, picking up the story fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead. The Testaments was published earlier this year as one of the biggest book launches of this century, topping the charts in all English-language territories, and won this year’s the Booker Prize for Fiction.
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her 1985 classic The Handmaid’s Tale went back into the bestseller charts with the election of Donald Trump, when the Handmaids became a symbol of resistance against him, and with the 2017 release of the eponymous award-winning TV series. Atwood has won numerous awards including the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer.
Margaret Atwood hits Riverside Theatre on Sunday, March 1, 2020. Tickets are on sale from Friday, November 29 from www.margaretatwoodlive.com.au
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