The Handmaid's Tale

In the Christian fundamentalist republic of Gilead, women are valued almost exclusively for their ability to bear children. Many become "handmaids": concubines of the most powerful men in the government. Those who have a baby for the state survive. And those who don't are allowed to clean up the growing nuclear wasteland outside Gilead's borders without protective equipment. Until death. Canadian author Margaret Atwood quickly became an icon of dystopian literature with her novel THE HANDMAID'S TALE, published in 1985. The book is fictional, but more "speculative fiction", as Atwood herself describes it. Everything that occurs had either already happened by the 1980s or was at least conceivable with the technologies of the time. Her focus on climate catastrophe, human rights abuses and the constant questioning of democracy has resonated in every decade of the last almost 50 years. By 2019, her book had sold more than 8 million copies and in 2017 she was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Today, however, THE HANDMAID'S TALE can be experienced not only as a book: It was made into a movie by Volker Schlöndorff and choreographed by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and there are also already five seasons of the well-known and award-winning television series. In 1998, Danish composer Poul Ruders and British librettist Paul Bentley transformed the legendary material into a GRAMMY Award-nominated opera, which is now being staged in Germany for the first time.