Two-time booker prize winning author, Margaret Atwood has spent four decades warning what happens when democracy, women’s rights and free expression begin to erode. Today, many readers believe the world has caught up with her fiction. In this interview with FRANCE 24’s Eve Jackson, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale reflects on US President Donald Trump, the expanding book bans in the United States, the rollback of reproductive rights, censorship and why she torched an “unburnable” edition of her most famous novel.
Speaking at Porto’s Babell literary festival, Atwood discusses how a dystopian novel published in 1985 became a global symbol of resistance, why banning books has never succeeded in silencing ideas and whether she ever imagined her fictional Republic of Gilead would feel so close to reality. The conversation also turns to her newly published memoir, Book of Lives – a deeply personal reflection on her childhood in Canada’s wilderness, her extraordinary literary career and the enduring love she shared with writer Graeme Gibson. Sharp and witty, Atwood looks back on a lifetime spent observing history and, as a playful finale, indulges her long-standing fascination with tarot and astrology by reading Eve Jackson’s palm.
