Now that her iconic novel The Handmaid’s Tale is an international sensation – thanks to a TV show which has somehow found massive success despite having basically zero relevance to the current political moment – Margaret Atwood has announced that she’s writing a sequel.
The TV series starring Elisabeth Moss (on Hulu in the US and SBS in Australia) has already gone beyond the end of the book, where Offred was shut in a van and driven off to god knows what – followed by [spoiler alert] an epilogue where we discover that the oppressive Gilead regime lasted 100 years.
But Atwood’s sequel – which she says was inspired by all the fan questions about Gilead she’s always being asked – will be set 15 years after Offred’s ending, and narrated by three female characters.
Fear not. It is a surprise. https://t.co/vjNkQ93sju
— Margaret E. Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) November 29, 2018
They could include another Handmaid, a Martha, the mysterious Econowives that are a bit of everything, women from the Colonies, or even less overt figures in Gilead’s society – like the sex workers trapped nonconsensually in establishments like the brothel Samira Wiley’s character popped up in in the series.
It’s called The Testaments, and it’s out in September 2019.
I’m sure it won’t be depressing at all.