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Atwood reveals full cover artwork for The Testaments
Margaret Atwood has revealed the full cover artwork for The Handmaid's Tale sequel, The Testaments (Chatto & Windus).
The book jacket, designed by Noma Bar, features a handmaiden in bold green and features the figures of a number of women.
Unveiling the back cover artwork on Twitter, Atwood said: "I’m revealing the @noma_bar back cover artwork for #TheTestaments for the first time. How many figures can you see?"
Bar also worked on The Handmaid's Tale hardcover reissue. The Testaments front cover was first revealed in January.
Atwood will celebrate publication of The Testaments with an appearance at Waterstones Piccadilly, a live global cinema event in September and a six-date tour across UK and Ireland in October and November.
On 9th September the author will appear at a midnight opening at Waterstones Piccadilly followed by a live appearance across stage and screens on 10th September, when The Testaments is published, in an event organised by Fane Productions. The launch event at the National Theatre will be broadcast live to over 1,200 cinemas around the world.
Set 15 years after Offred's ambiguous final scene in the acclaimed 1985-published novel, The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood said: “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.”
Since 1998, The Handmaid’s Tale (first published by Jonathan Cape) has sold 934,934 copies across all editions, according to Nielsen BookScan with the biggest editions including the 1996 paperback (at 575,561 copies sold) and the 2017 TV tie-in edition (204,926). It also spent seven weeks at the Weekly E-book Ranking number one in summer 2017.
The Testaments will be published under Vintage imprint Chatto & Windus on 10th September, priced £20. Becky Hardie, deputy publishing director of Chatto & Windus, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown.
