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Margaret Atwood, the author of the 1985 dystopian classicThe Handmaid’s Tale,was already writing a sequel when President Donald Trump was elected—a stunning win that caused many of her already reverential readers to call her a prophet.
In an interview featured in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, Atwood discusses her new book,The Testaments,and one of her biggest concerns about the current administration: Trump is impeding the fight against climate change. (A longtime climate change denier, Trump has also reversed numerous regulations created to protect the environment.)
“I didn’t have any expectations,”says Atwood, 79, about Trump’s presidency, “but the really serious thing is that we’re losing time on the climate crisis.”
For many people, the election was a wake-up call, Atwood explains.
“It focused people’s minds,” she says. “It focused the minds of people who had been going a bit la di da. ‘Oh, well I’m not going to vote because they’re are all the same.’ Or they were going, ‘Well, I can’t really vote for either [Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump].’ So, they didn’t vote and that was a mistake.”
And now she’s raising a whole new series of philosophical and political questions withThe Testaments.The sequel took Atwood four years to write and explores the downfall of the novel’s repressive Gilead through the stories of three women connected to the original handmaid.
For all of the interpretations of her books, Atwood wants to make one point very clear.
“Trump is not the face of Gilead,” she says. “They’re much more parenthetically religious than he. He’s not at all. He is a different kind of demagogue.”
For more on Atwood, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on stands Friday.
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She continues: “Everyone should realize climate change is a real thing. And who you should vote for is not that person who says it’s not happening.”
The Testamentsis on sale now.
source: people.com
