{"id":2135467,"date":"2025-11-04T21:20:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2135467"},"modified":"2025-11-04T21:20:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:20:45","slug":"margaret-atwood-breaks-down-the-handmaids-tale-with-dua-lipa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/margaret-atwood-breaks-down-the-handmaids-tale-with-dua-lipa\/","title":{"rendered":"Margaret Atwood breaks down The Handmaid&#8217;s Tale with Dua Lipa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Margaret Atwood joined Dua Lipa on the latest episode of the British pop star&#8217;s podcast, <em>Service95 Book Club<\/em>, to dissect the themes and plot points of <em>The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was a \u201cpinch-me moment\u201d for Lipa, who first read Atwood\u2019s influential and enduring novel when she was 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> was published 40 years ago, and as the conversation between the singer and author reveals, still remains relevant today.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the introduction Lipa describes the book as a \u201cthriller, a classic work of feminist fiction and perhaps, most importantly, a warning against authoritarian rule for every new generation of readers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>WATCH | Dua Lipa and Margaret Atwood in conversation:<\/strong><\/em><span><span class=\"youtube\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dua Lipa In Conversation With Margaret Atwood, Author of The Handmaid&#039;s Tale\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vLkPeRifUaI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>, which has most recently been adapted into a successful television series, tells the story of a totalitarian pseudo-United States,\u00a0 where women have been stripped of their rights. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI couldn\u2019t imagine at 15 years old that there was any danger of that becoming a reality, whereas now re-reading it at 30 years old in today&#8217;s climate, it\u2019s quite terrifying,\u201d Lipa said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the episode, Atwood speaks about the time period she wrote the book in: the Cold War was ongoing, the Berlin Wall separated East and West Germany (where Atwood was living at the time), and Ronald Reagan\u2019s presidency ushered in \u201ca push back against 1970s feminism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In response to Lipa\u2019s questioning about the audience reaction to the book, Atwood replied: \u201cThe Canadians asked nervously when the book came out, \u2018Could it happen here?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Less likely, we\u2019re a two-language country, it\u2019s harder to get us to all line up in one direction.\u2019 And anyway I needed a place in my novel for people to escape to.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S. there were two reactions: \u201c\u2018Oh that would never happen here, [we\u2019re the] world\u2019s leading democracy,\u2019 and on the other hand, \u2018How long have we got?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They also discuss Atwood\u2019s new memoir, <em>Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts<\/em>, which further outlines the political and social climate in which Atwood wrote <em>The Handmaid\u2019s Tale: <\/em>\u201cthe rise of the religious right as a political force, women belonged in the home, their proper role was just that\u2026the three Cs: children, cooking and church.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2022, Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that established American women&#8217;s constitutional right to abortion, was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau called the ruling \u201chorrific\u201d and said \u201cno government, politician or man\u201d should force a woman to carry out a pregnancy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The episode also dives into the influence of science fiction writers whom Atwood read growing up \u2014 like H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury and George Orwell \u2014 as well as the Salem Witch Trials, and Atwood&#8217;s lasting legacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lipa has interviewed Patti Smith, Khaled Hosseini, Ocean Vuong, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and many more authors since launching her book club podcast, which is one arm of her <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.service95.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><u>Service95 lifestyle website<\/u><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She previously had a podcast with BBC Sounds called<em> Dua Lipa: At Your Service<\/em>, where she interviewed all kinds of cultural influencers including Dan Levy, Charli XCX, Megan thee Stallion and Elton John.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cbc.ca \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Margaret Atwood joined Dua Lipa on the latest episode of the British pop star&#8217;s podcast, Service95 Book Club, to dissect the themes and plot points of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale.\u00a0 It was a \u201cpinch-me moment\u201d for Lipa, who first read Atwood\u2019s influential and enduring novel when she was 15.\u00a0 The Handmaid\u2019s Tale was published 40 years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2135468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2135467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Margaret-Atwood-breaks-down-The-Handmaids-Tale-with-Dua-Lipa.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2135467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2135469,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135467\/revisions\/2135469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2135468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2135467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2135467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2135467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}