Atwood: US election made my book bestseller again

Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood has said worries about women’s issues after the US election have sent her book ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ up bestseller lists.

The guardian reports the book, which is about a theocratic dictatorship in the US where women are forced to bear children for the ruling class, topped Amazon’s bestseller list earlier this week, and still ranks in the top 10.

In an interview during Cuba’s international book fair, Atwood said sales of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ were also boosted by a trailer during the Super Bowl for its new televised adaptation by video streaming site Hulu.

Atwood, who won the Booker Prize in 2000 for ‘The Blind Assassin’, said ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was inspired by her studies of 17th-century America and its puritan values.

“You are seeing a bubbling up of it now,” she said, referring in particular to moves under President Donald Trump to restrict the right to abortion. Trump said last year women should face punishment if they receive abortions, a comment he later retracted.

RSH/RSH