Provocative. Shocking. Prophetic. The provocative vision of a totalitarian state: After a nuclear contamination, a large part of the female population becomes infertile. Women are disenfranchised and divided into three groups: wives of leaders, handmaids, and servants. The latter are recruited for reproduction and are meant to bear children for infertile wives. The handmaid Desfred also becomes a victim of this degrading program. However, she possesses something that all the authorities, guards, and spies cannot take away from her: her hope for escape, for love, for life. With "The Handmaid's Tale," Margaret Atwood has positioned herself in the tradition of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.