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    The Handmaid's Tale (Graphic Novel)

    A Novel

    Author Margaret Atwood
    Illustrated by Renee Nault
    Look inside
    Hardcover
    $27.00 US
    Doubleday Publishing | Nan A. Talese
    On sale Mar 26, 2019 | 240 Pages | 9780385539241
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    Everything Handmaids wear is red: the colour of blood, which defines us.
     
    Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships. She serves in the household of the Commander and his wife, and under the new social order she has only one purpose: once a month, she must lie on her back and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if they are fertile. But Offred remembers the years before Gilead, when she was an independent woman who had a job, a family, and a name of her own. Now, her memories and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. 

    Provocative, startling, prophetic, The Handmaid’s Tale has long been a global phenomenon. With this stunning graphic novel adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s modern classic, beautifully realized by artist Renée Nault, the terrifying reality of Gilead has been brought to vivid life like never before.
    © Ruven Afanador
    MARGARET ATWOOD is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize.

    Atwood has won numerous awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN America Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to litera­ture. She lives in Toronto. View titles by Margaret Atwood
    Renee Nault View titles by Renee Nault
    “Gorgeous.”
    ―io9
     
    “Arresting . . . Able to convey some things that text—and even a TV show—never could.”
    ―The New York Post

    “A rich, visceral approach to telling the story.”
    ―Toronto Star
     
    “Nault spectacularly transforms lines and color into fear, resignation, desperation, the tiniest glimmers of hope . . . most piercing throughout are her affecting use of color (red—'the colour of blood'—and its portentous hues of orange, crimson, rust) and scale (the indistinguishable handmaids trapped in plain sight). She adds softness when Offred recalls her past, with less-saturated colors for happier memories, thickened, darker lines for the repetitive nightmares.”
    ―Booklist, starred review

    "Nault spectacularly transforms lines and color into fear, resignation, desperation, and the tiniest glimmers of hope."
    ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

    "[Y]ou owe it to yourself to check out Renée Nault's take on the classic dystopian story."
    ―Bustle

    “There is magic in every detail of Ms. Nault’s adaptation, thoughtfulness in each panel, an intentionality about every aspect of it, the costuming, the sets and her interpretation of Gileadean iconography is stark, sometimes shocking and beautifully rendered.”
    ―Good Men Project
      
    “There’s something about Renee Nault’s art that makes the reader feel both closer to the action and completely, terrifyingly, alone . . . This is the power of graphic novels―the ability to add that extra emotional pull to an already strong story.”
    ―The Geekiary

    “This is great comics. If you agree that the most basic definition of comics is a fluid dance between words and pictures, you will very likely be struck by the beauty of this book . . . What Nault has done here is stunning.”
    ―Seattle Review of Books

    "Haunting . . . Impossible to look away from."
    ―The Mary Sue

    About

    Everything Handmaids wear is red: the colour of blood, which defines us.
     
    Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships. She serves in the household of the Commander and his wife, and under the new social order she has only one purpose: once a month, she must lie on her back and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if they are fertile. But Offred remembers the years before Gilead, when she was an independent woman who had a job, a family, and a name of her own. Now, her memories and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. 

    Provocative, startling, prophetic, The Handmaid’s Tale has long been a global phenomenon. With this stunning graphic novel adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s modern classic, beautifully realized by artist Renée Nault, the terrifying reality of Gilead has been brought to vivid life like never before.

    Author

    © Ruven Afanador
    MARGARET ATWOOD is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize.

    Atwood has won numerous awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN America Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to litera­ture. She lives in Toronto. View titles by Margaret Atwood
    Renee Nault View titles by Renee Nault

    Praise

    “Gorgeous.”
    ―io9
     
    “Arresting . . . Able to convey some things that text—and even a TV show—never could.”
    ―The New York Post

    “A rich, visceral approach to telling the story.”
    ―Toronto Star
     
    “Nault spectacularly transforms lines and color into fear, resignation, desperation, the tiniest glimmers of hope . . . most piercing throughout are her affecting use of color (red—'the colour of blood'—and its portentous hues of orange, crimson, rust) and scale (the indistinguishable handmaids trapped in plain sight). She adds softness when Offred recalls her past, with less-saturated colors for happier memories, thickened, darker lines for the repetitive nightmares.”
    ―Booklist, starred review

    "Nault spectacularly transforms lines and color into fear, resignation, desperation, and the tiniest glimmers of hope."
    ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

    "[Y]ou owe it to yourself to check out Renée Nault's take on the classic dystopian story."
    ―Bustle

    “There is magic in every detail of Ms. Nault’s adaptation, thoughtfulness in each panel, an intentionality about every aspect of it, the costuming, the sets and her interpretation of Gileadean iconography is stark, sometimes shocking and beautifully rendered.”
    ―Good Men Project
      
    “There’s something about Renee Nault’s art that makes the reader feel both closer to the action and completely, terrifyingly, alone . . . This is the power of graphic novels―the ability to add that extra emotional pull to an already strong story.”
    ―The Geekiary

    “This is great comics. If you agree that the most basic definition of comics is a fluid dance between words and pictures, you will very likely be struck by the beauty of this book . . . What Nault has done here is stunning.”
    ―Seattle Review of Books

    "Haunting . . . Impossible to look away from."
    ―The Mary Sue

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