Amid the political storms over books that right-wingers consider inappropriate for school libraries, author Margaret Atwood has announced an “incombustible” edition of her most famous novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
The 82-year-old Canadian author appeared in a short YouTube video announcing the project, attempting to flame the single volume with a flamethrower.
Announcing the book, Penguin Random House said: “In the United States and around the world, books are being challenged, banned, and even burned. So we created a special edition of a book that has been challenged and banned. for decades.
“Printed and bound with fireproof materials, this edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was made to be completely immeasurable. It is designed to protect this life story and to represent itself as a powerful symbol against censorship. “
As The Guardian described in 2010, the 25th anniversary of its publication, The Handmaid’s Tale “tells the story of Offred – not his real name, but the patronymic given to him by the new regime in an oppressive America. parallel to the future- and her role as a maid.
“Maids are forced to provide children for power to infertile women of higher social status, the wives of commanders. They undergo regular medical tests and, in many respects, become invisible, the sum total of their biological parts. “.
According to the American Library Association, The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the most frequently challenged or banned books in U.S. schools.
In an open letter to a school district that tried to ban the book in 2006, Atwood said: “First of all, the comment: ‘Offensive for Christians’ surprises me. Nowhere in the book is the regime identified as Christian. In terms of sexual explicitness, The Handmaid’s Tale is far less interested in sex than much of the Bible. “
Atwood’s book has taken on a new role thanks to a television adaptation starring Elisabeth Moss and a 2019 sequel, The Testaments, which won Atwood a second Booker Award. The “candesa” costumes, the red cloaks with white headdresses, have become a regular spectacle in protests for reproductive and women’s rights.
The auction of an “incombustible” edition of The Handmaid’s Tale comes ahead of an expected ruling overturning the right to abortion, which will be handed down by a Supreme Court dominated by Conservative judges.
In a new collection of essays, Burning Questions, Atwood writes: “Women who cannot make their own decisions about whether or not to have babies are enslaved because the state claims ownership of their bodies and the right to dictate. the use that their bodies must make of it. ”
His book “Incombustible” is being auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York until June 7. By mid-morning on Tuesday, the price was $ 40,000. All proceeds will go to support Pen America in its “work in support of free speech.”
Hosting a Pen gala in New York on Monday night, writer and comedian Faith Salie said the book “was made to withstand not only censors staging fire and burning fans, but real flames, those who would use to burn “. overthrow our democracy ”.