Margaret Atwood "The Testaments" Interview

Margaret Atwood Interview

The new book Testaments is out now, a sequel to Margaret Atwood's 1985 book The Handmaid's Tale. My recent visit to Barnes and Noble had this book and other The Handmaid's Tale merchandise on several tables in the store. While I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale yet, I have seen most of the acclaimed television show starring Elisabeth Moss on Hulu.

I was quite interested to know that there was now a sequel to the book, so I decided to read an interview with Margaret Atwood conducted by the website Goodreads.com. A great site for any fan of books and literature. Here are some highlights from the interview and the full interview can be found here https://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/1462.Margaret_Atwood?content_type=all#comment_form

The interview starts out with Atwood talking about how the book Testaments came about. For years Atwood said she wouldn't do a sequel to the book because she couldn't do the “continuation of the story of Offred in her voice” (Goodreads, 2019). Having not read the first book, but hearing it ends on a cliffhanger it sounds like she had no more of Offred's story to tell. But as the years went on and society seemed to approach her vision of Gilead, she began to think about the story outside of Offred's perspective. Around 2015 Atwood began writing notes for a new book, and by 2017 she said “the ideas were all pretty much there” (Goodreads, 2019).

The new book Testaments will explore the lives of females in Gilead 15 years after the end of the first book. Looking at the children that have grown up in a totalitarian society and the power of women, such as the Aunts, within Gilead. The distance of the handmaids and how they are viewed form a child,

“a privileged position in the hierarchy of descending position, you want to keep your position, not risk it to help people who are not at that level” sounds like an interesting way to further the story and world that Atwood has created (Goodreads, 2019).

This is one thing that the show does a little bit of, exploring other handmaid's lives outside of Offred's.

Speaking of the TV show adaptation, Atwood said she spoke to the show runner, Bruce Miller, telling him not to kill off Aunt Lydia. Working with Miller to maintain a consistency between her books and the show, especially during writing Testament. Atwood even had a small cameo in the season 1 pilot episode as one of the Aunts.

Later in the interview Atwood talks about how she has influenced other female writers of dystopian fiction. Not giving any names, a few that spring to my mind are Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth. Atwood mentioned the books that influenced her were 1984 by George Orwell and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. “I think we are quite influenced by what we read in high school. But it takes us a while to acquire the skills and craft to create our own” (Goodreads, 2019). This is an interesting notion in writing, we read what we enjoy but cannot yet create for ourselves. It takes time and practice and perhaps several reads of our favorite works before we are ready to try and emulate our favorite authors.

Off topic Atwood talks a bit about her optimism of the younger generation and politics, as well as climate change. Shining some light on Project Drawdown (https://www.drawdown.org/) and the book Drawdown. Stating she is a be advocate for solutions to climate change and even donates to a company that will compost your dead corpse. A bit creepy, but apparently green friendly.

Hayley. “What Happened to Offred? Margaret Atwood's Big Sequel Answers Readers' Questions - Goodreads News & Interviews.” Goodreads, Goodreads, 6 Aug. 2019, www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/1462.Margaret_Atwood?content_type=all#comment_form.