Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale has once more stood up against the U.S. government. The first time, roughly a month ago, she and her publishing house, Penguin Random House, published a fireproof edition of her dystopian novel, which was sold for $130,000. All proceeds from the fireproof novel went to PEN America, a literacy and free expression advocation agency. But this time, Atwood was a little more subtle as she called out the state of America via Instagram.
“You write these books so they won’t come true,” she said in an interview with People Magazine in 2017. “When Handmaid’s Tale come out in ’85, there was disbelief. I thought a religious-right takeover was possible in the U.S. and was Crazy Margaret. Premature, but unfortunately too close. That doesn’t make me happy,” she further clarified on Twitter.
She has even been titled a “pop prophet” by using Gilead as a sort of bleak future for the United States, much like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and the totalitarian government both novels have tried to warn us about.
Her Instagram post was captioned “Coffee in Nova Scotia with an appropriately sloganed coffee cup…” And in my opinion, this is one of the biggest ‘I told you so’s of the century. The picture received 32,611 likes and nearly 500 comments.
It is only fair that Atwood has a major say in these issues, as the red garb her characters dress in has been a staple at recent protests of 2022 and goes as far back as 2016 during the Trump presidency. Women have used it as a means of expression as well as a sign of the repression upon their bodies.
And with the future right around the corner, there will always be women who will not go quietly. And no matter how big or small, your voices and actions matter.
If you’d like to read more about the unburnable book, click here.
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