“Because Powerful Words Can Never Be Extinguished”
NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) – As hundreds of books are being pulled from school libraries all over the country or being burned in the streets, author Margaret Atwood, 82, and Penguin Random House have announced an unburnable edition of her most famous novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
The Canadian native popped up in a YouTube video to announce the book, attempting to burn it to a crisp with a flame thrower and failing. The limited-edition release of the fireproof book is bound with a flame retardant cover and printed on fire-resistant paper.
Penguin Random House said: “Across the United States and worldwide, books are being challenged, banned and even burned. So we created a special edition of a book that’s been challenged and banned for decades. Printed and bound using fireproof materials, this edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was made to be completely un-burnable. It is designed to protect this vital story and stand as a powerful symbol against censorship.”
The Handmaid’s Tale is the story of a new America where an extremist religious organization (they never specify a single religion) takes control of the United States government, kills the members of Congress, suspends the US Constitution and forces women into state-sanctioned rape due to a drastically declining birth rate.
Women are not allowed to have money, jobs, or freedom. They’re forced into re-training centers where they learn to be a “handmaid,” provide children for infertile women of higher social classes, are subjected to medical tests, are constantly watched by the new regime’s police force, and are taught to be “subservient” to men – becoming nothing more than a body used to bear children.
One woman is June, who is captured while trying to escape with her child. As a handmaid, she is renamed “Offred”. Offred is determined to survive the “new” world and be reunited with the daughter that was ripped from her side. The “tale” is her story.
The American Library Association states The Handmaid’s Tale is among the most challenged books in the US school system.
The book, written in 1985 was given a whole new audience with the The Handmaid’s Tale TV show and it’s 2019 sequel, The Testament. The “handmaid” costumes (red cloaks and white headdresses) are a familiar sight at protests for women’s rights.
Atwood, in a new essay collection titled, Burning Questions, says:
“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 to which their bodies must be put.”
The unburnable book is being auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York until June 7th. All proceeds will support Pen America in its “work in support of free expression.” Today (May 27), the price stands at $70,000.
