Explained: The significance of Margaret Atwood's 'unburnable' edition of The Handmaid’s Tale

Burning of books, censoring of cinema and silencing unpopular opinions are often tropes used in any dystopian works of fiction. Often these creative tropes find their way through to real life and are met with dissent in societies that still allow it. As a symbol against censorship, Canadian literary legend Margaret Atwood and Penguin Random House announced an ‘unburnable’ edition of the author’s most famous work, The Handmaid’s Tale’. In a short video released on 24 May, Atwood, 82, can be seen using a flame-thrower on a copy of the book. It doesn’t burn, “because powerful words cannot be extinguished”. Why has Margaret Atwood announced an ‘unburnable’ The Handmaid’s Tale? A special single-copy “unburnable” version of Atwood’s book is up on auction at Sotheby’s till 7 June. The auction was announced ahead of PEN America’s annual fundraising dinner gala in New York on Monday. PEN America will be the recipient of the proceeds of the auction. In a press note, Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle commented: “We are at an urgent moment in our history, with ideas and truth — the foundations of our democracy — under attack. Few writers have been as instrumental in the fight for free expression as Margaret Atwood. To see her classic novel about the dangers of oppression reborn in this innovative, unburnable edition is a timely reminder of what’s at stake in the battle against censorship…” As the US is on the verge of overturning the landmark Roe V Wade judgment that would effectively make abortion illegal in the country, the book becomes more relevant due to its storyline. Set in a dystopian world that is ruled by a totalitarian patriarchal government, the book tells the story of a group of women known as the handmaids who are forced to become surrogates for the infertile wives of Commanders of the ruling class. The book registers a protest against a censorship culture that is gaining ground around the world, and especially in the US. Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale, has also been victim of being banned or challenged in US schools. In one such instance in 2006, the Canadian author wrote to a school district which attempted to ban the book. “First, the remark: ‘Offensive to Christians’ amazes me. Nowhere in the book is the regime identified as Christian. As for sexual explicitness, The Handmaid’s Tale is a lot less interested in sex than is much of the Bible,” she wrote, as reported by The Guardian. Again in 2020, the book’s inclusion in a reading list for twelfth grade at a high school in Georgia was challenged for “vulgarity and sexual overtones”. The book was eventually retained on the list. “The Handmaid’s Tale has been banned many times — sometimes by whole countries, such as Portugal and Spain in the days of Salazar and the Francoists, sometimes by school boards, sometimes by libraries. Let’s hope we don’t reach the stage of wholesale book burnings, as in Fahrenheit 451. But if we do, let’s hope some books will prove unburnable — that they will travel underground, as prohibited books did in the Soviet Union,” Atwood said in a press statement. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.