topics: |  science-fiction | canada | [gov | general | award | 1985, | 1st | arthur | c. | clarke | award | 1987]

In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a
stunning Orwellian vision of the near future.
It is the world of the near future, and Offred is a
Handmaid in the home of the Commander and his wife. She is allowed out once a
day to the food market, she is not permitted to read, and she is hoping the
Commander makes her pregnant, because she is only valued if her ovaries are
viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she was an independent
woman, had a job of her own, a husband and child. But all of that is gone
now...everything has changed.

The American Library Association lists it in "10 Most Challenged Books of
1999" and as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of
1990–2000"[3] due to many complaints from parents of pupils regarding the
novel's anti-religious content and sexual references.