NEW YORK — Margaret Atwood has imagined apocalyptic catastrophe, Dystopian authorities and an writer faking her personal dying. However till lately she had spared herself the nightmare of making an attempt to burn one among her personal books.
With a flamethrower, no much less.
She failed, and that was the purpose.
On Monday night time, timed for PEN America’s annual gala, Atwood and Penguin Random Home introduced that a one-off, unburnable version of “The Handmaid’s Story” can be auctioned by way of Sotheby’s New York. They launched the initiative with a quick video that reveals Atwood making an attempt in useless to incinerate her basic novel a few totalitarian patriarchy, the Republic of Gilead. Proceeds can be donated to PEN, which advocates totally free expression around the globe.
“Within the class of belongings you by no means anticipated, that is one among them,” she mentioned in a phone interview.
“To see her basic novel concerning the risks of oppression reborn on this progressive, unburnable version is a well timed reminder of what’s at stake within the battle towards censorship,” Markus Dohle, CEO of Penguin Random Home, mentioned in an announcement.
The fireproof narrative is a joint venture amongst PEN, Atwood, Penguin Random Home and two corporations based mostly in Toronto, the place Atwood is a longtime resident: the Rethink artistic company and The Fuel Firm Inc., a graphic arts and bookbinding specialty studio.
Rethink’s Robbie Percy mentioned that he and fellow artistic director Caroline Friesen got here up with the thought. Late final yr, they'd heard a few Texas legislator who listed a whole lot of works for potential banning from faculty libraries: Percy and Friesen questioned if it had been doable to make a e-book shielded from probably the most harrowing censorship. They quickly agreed on “The Handmaid’s Story,” which got here out within the Nineteen Eighties and has had renewed consideration over the previous few years, starting with the political rise and surprising presidency of Donald Trump and persevering with with the present surge of e-book bannings.
“We thought an unburnable copy of ‘Handmaid’s Story’ might function a logo,” he mentioned.
Percy and Friesen spoke with Atwood’s publishers in Canada and the U.S. — each divisions of Penguin Random Home — and obtained in contact with the writer. They then contacted Gaslight, which has labored on quite a few commissioned texts, together with some for PEN.
The Fuel Firm’s principal proprietor, Doug Laxdal, advised the AP that as an alternative of paper, he and his colleagues used Cinefoil, a specifically handled aluminum product. The 384-page textual content, which will be learn like an abnormal novel, took greater than two months to finish. The Fuel Firm wanted days simply to print out the manuscript; the Cinefoil sheets had been so skinny that some would fall by way of cracks within the printer and develop into broken past restore. The manuscript was then sewed collectively by hand, utilizing nickel copper wire.
“The one method you could possibly destroy that e-book is with a shredder,” Laxdal says. “In any other case, it can final for a really very long time.”
Atwood advised the AP that she was instantly within the particular version, and in making the video. She was a teen within the Fifties, when Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” was printed, and holds vivid reminiscences of the novel’s futuristic setting, during which books are lowered to ashes.
“The Handmaid’s Story” has by no means been burned, so far as Atwood is aware of, however has usually been subjected to bans or tried bans. Atwood remembers a 2006 effort in a single Texas highschool district, when the superintendent referred to as her e-book “sexually express and offensive to Christians,” that ended when college students efficiently fought again. In 2021, “The Handmaid’s Story” was pulled by faculties in Texas and Kansas.
The novel has bought thousands and thousands of copies and its impression is not only by way of phrases, however photos, amplified by the award-winning Hulu adaptation starring Elisabeth Moss. Advocates worldwide for ladies’s rights have dressed within the puritanical caped robes Atwood devised for her story. Most lately, some girls in handmaid outfits marched to protest the Supreme Courtroom’s anticipated overturning this yr of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 resolution that legalized abortion nationwide.
“It’s an unforgettable visible metaphor,” Atwood mentioned. “That’s why folks within the center ages put coats of arms on their armor, and had recognizable flags. That method you possibly can visualize them and know who’s standing for what.”
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