Last night I was at the hugely anticpated live streamed reading of the new book The Testaments by Margaret Atwood Live. It was a fantastic oppurtunity to hear from the woman herself about The Handmaid’s Tale and the new book. She is a brilliant writer and one of the most important female authors of this generation. The Testaments is a sequel to life after Gillead and features some familiar characters and some new young women’s voices. The extracts of the book were beautifully read by Sally Hawkins, Lily James and Ann Dowd. I predict this book will be devoured in record times by her dedicated fans around the world.
Margaret Atwood Live is a celebration of the global publication of the Booker-longlisted The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s highly anticipated sequel to her seminal work, The Handmaid’s Tale. The live event included a Q&A between Margaret Atwood and Samira Ahmed, and the screening of never-before-seen footage from a documentary on Atwood’s life and work.
Alex Fane said: ‘The Testaments is one of the most highly anticipated sequels of all time, and it’s amazing to think that people all over the world will be able to mark the occasion by joining us in cinemas.’
Margaret Atwood: Live in Cinemas was broadcast to over 1,300 cinemas across the globe, including cinemas throughout the UK, the US, Canada, Malta, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland plus delayed screenings in Australia, and New Zealand.
Full details and tickets can be found at www.margaretatwoodlive.com.
Margaret Atwood says ‘I am delighted that the launch of The Testaments will take place not only in London on 10th September, but also by live-streaming to over 1300 cinemas around the world. I can’t be in all the places at once in my analogue body, but I look forward to being with so many readers via the big screen.’
.The publication of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was back in 1985 and in this brilliant sequel, Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades. When the van door slammed on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead. Margaret Atwood’s sequel The Testaments picks up the story fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
‘Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.’ Margaret Atwood
The Testaments will be published by Chatto & Windus, an imprint of VINTAGE, on 10 September.