Although it won’t hit bookstore shelves in Canada until Sept. 10, Toronto author Margaret Atwood’s new novel The Testaments is already the talk of the town thanks to a Booker Prize nomination.
The Booker Prize is the top literary award in the United Kingdom. This is Atwood’s sixth nomination. She won the prize back in 2000 for The Blind Assassin.
The Testaments is Atwood’s long-awaited sequel to her groundbreaking dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which has been turned into a wildly popular TV series. The sequel picks up the story 15 years after the conclusion of The Handmaid’s Tale and features “the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.”
In a social media statement earlier this year, Atwood says the inspiration for the new work has come from her legion of fans.
“Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in,” she wrote.
Following the release of the book, Atwood will be giving a talk on the book in Toronto at the Bluma Appel Theatre on Sept. 16. before heading across Canada on a tour. There are still a few tickets remaining, which can be purchased here.