Margaret Atwood’s Star Turn

To say our very own Margaret Atwood is having a moment is an understatement.

While the author has long been one of our most respected cultural exports, in today’s mash-up of platinum television meets gutter politics, Atwood’s work is seen as downright prophetic. In her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, a totalitarian society has overthrown the American government and taken away women’s rights, a new class of women are kept for reproductive purposes—handmaids—in sexual servitude.

The novel was adapted for the big screen by Harold Pinter in 1990 but its latest incarnation as a 10-episode limited television series is  generating buzz in Hollywood and beyond. Atwood served as consulting producer on the Hulu production, an American streaming service, the series begins airing on Bravo with a two-hour premiere April 30.