In 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale appeared on bookstore shelves for the first time, the book that made Margaret Atwood famous worldwide. Today, the Canadian author’s dystopian novel takes on a new form: the audiobook.
The Voices of the Audiobook
Viola Graziosi lends her voice to the narrator, voicing the protagonist Offred (and to most of the novel), and she feels a particular affinity with the tale, having spent years touring Italy with a one-woman stage monologue about the Handmaid.
Stefano Fresi, meanwhile, reads the “Historical Notes” at the end, the book’s appendices set decades after the main events, creating a contrast between the lived experience of a woman and the reflections of someone who, later, studied its developments.
Fresi is a name well known in the world of cinema: he has acted in films such as Romanzo Criminale, Nessuno mi può giudicare, Viva l’Italia, Lasciarsi un giorno a Roma and the Smetto quando voglio film series. In addition to acting, he also works in dubbing and audiobook narration (such as Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts or the Maigret series by Georges Simenon).
The Plot of The Handmaid’s Tale
Published in Italy by Ponte alle Grazie in 2004, in Camillo Pennati’s translation, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a dystopian future in which a coup in the United States has toppled the government. The society is ruled by the Republic of Gilead, which is in fact a totalitarian and patriarchal regime based on a distorted reading of biblical precepts.
While sterility runs rampant among women, the few who remain fertile are captured and transformed into Handmaids, with the sole purpose of reproducing: one of them is Offred.
In Gilead, women are divided into castes: the red designates the Handmaids, the Marthae wear green, and the Wives of the Commanders wear blue.
Margaret Atwood, whose eclectic personality has always kept a close eye on the world of women, has published with Ponte alle Grazie several books, including the autobiography Our Lives (Our Lives) (2025, translated by Alba Bariffi, Guido Calza, Margherita Crepax and Serena Daniele) and Fourteen Days (written in collaboration with Douglas Preston, translated by Guido Calza), set during the lockdown.
The Sequel: The Testaments
The Ottawa-born author has also offered a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, set decades after the release of the original: The Testaments, published by the same Ponte alle Grazie in 2019 (translated by Guido Calza), begins the narrative about roughly 15 years after the end of the events recounted in the first book. Protagonists are Aunt Lydia, Daisy, and Agnes, whose points of view were secondary in the first volume.
From both books, television series have been spun off, created by Bruce Miller, which in Italy were distributed under their original titles (The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments); in the first, the lead is played by Elisabeth Moss; in the second, the main actresses are Chase Infiniti, Ann Dowd and Lucy Halliday.
