The Handmaid\'s Tale (Contemporary Classics) by Margaret Atwood

A passage from the dystopian classic that became a 21st century phenomenon

'The bell that measures time is ringing. Time here is measured by bells, as once in nunneries. As in a nunnery too, there are few mirrors.

I get up out of the chair, advance my feet into the sunlight, in their red shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. The red gloves are lying on the bed. I pick them up, pull them onto my hands, finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us. The skirt is ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full. The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen. I never looked good in red, it’s not my colour.'

• Item Weight :224 g
• Paperback :320 pages
• ISBN-10 :0099740915
• ISBN-13 :978-0099740919
• Dimensions :19.56 x 12.7 x 2.03 cm
• Publisher :Vintage (19 September 1996)
• Language: :English