The grim dystopia “The Handmaid’s Tale” provides no hint of how delightful Margaret Atwood can be in conversation. Her humor is dry, her perspective vast. Atwood classifies much of her work as speculative fiction, our world transformed by events that stem from our present and past. That’s how the totalitarian religious state of “The Handmaid’s Tale” came about in 1985 — and how the MaddAddam trilogy, completed in 2013, imagined a devastating pandemic, survived by a few humans and a number of bio-hacked animal creatures.
Los Anegeles Times: Margaret Atwood’s guide to turning dark histories into fictional futures
Margaret Atwood speaks on stage during the annual Make Equality Reality Gala hosted by Equality Now on Nov. 19, 2019 in New York City.