Literary phenomenon and Booker Prize-winner Margaret Atwood will be coming to Canberra as part of an Australia-wide tour in February.
Atwood, who won this year's Booker Prize for The Testaments, her highly-anticipated follow-up to 1985's The Handmaid's Tale, will be live in conversation in six different cities.
She'll be speaking about the cultural juggernaut that her books have become, especially since the Emmy Award-winning television adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale.
According to production company Fane, she'll also be revisiting her extensive career as a writer, and discussing why she has returned to the fictional world of Gilead 34 years later.
The tour follows a sell-out run of dates across Europe, the US and Canada.
"I am so happy to be returning to Australia, where I have spent much time in the past, and where readers have always been so warm and welcoming," she said in a statement last week.
In a career spanning five decades, the Canadian author has published more than 50 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays, with novels including The Robber Bride, Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin.
And while she has always remained a highly respected author, her 1985 classic, taught in high school English classes in various countries, has seen a resurgence in sales and interest with the election of Donald Trump, when the Handmaids became a symbol of resistance against him.
The Handmaids have also become a symbol of women's rights and a protest against misogyny and oppression.
The publication of The Testaments was one of the biggest book launches of this century, topping the charts in all English-language territories, with eager readers queuing, Harry Potter-style, outside bookstores to get their hands on the first copies.
She has said in interviews that she was inspired to write a follow-up to The Handmaid's Tale after Trump's election.
Tickets for Atwood's tour will go on sale on Monday, November 25.
She will be appearing at The Canberra Theatre on February 19, the third event of the tour.
- Visit margaretatwoodlive.com.au for tickets.
