Margaret Atwood on Stories, Deception and the Bible

<p>A good rule of thumb is that whatever Margaret Atwood is worried about now is likely what the rest of us will be worried about a decade from now. The rise of authoritarianism. A backlash against women’s social progress. The seductions and dangers of genetic engineering. Climate change leading to social unrest. Advertising culture permeating more and more of our lives. Atwood — the author of the Booker Prize-winning novels “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6122/the-blind-assassin-by-margaret-atwood/" target="_blank">The Blind Assassin</a>” and “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/566433/the-testaments-by-margaret-atwood/9780771009433" target="_blank">The Testaments</a>,” as well as “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/9780771008795" target="_blank">The Handmaid’s Tale</a>,” “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6113/oryx-and-crake-by-margaret-atwood/" target="_blank">Oryx and Crake</a>” and, most recently, the essay collection “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/673327/burning-questions-by-margaret-atwood/" target="_blank">Burning Questions</a>” — was writing about these topics decades ago, forecasting the unsettling world that we inhabit now. Pick up any one of her 17 published novels, and you will likely come across a theme or a quality of the setting that rings eerily true in the present day.</p><p>This is especially true of Atwood’s magnum opus, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which takes place in a future America where climate change, droughts, a decaying economy and falling birthrates lead to the rise of a theocracy in which women called Handmaids are conscripted into childbirth. The repressive regime she created in that novel, Gilead, has been endlessly referred to and reinterpreted over the years because of the wisdom it contains about why people cooperate with — and resist — political movements that destroy the freedom of others. And as recent weeks have shown, we’re far from the day when that wisdo