Naomi Alderman Quotes

The interesting thing about 'The Handmaid's Tale' is that everything that happens in it has happened or is happening somewhere in the world.

'The Handmaid's Tale' takes place in the near future, a dystopian future, and is based on the book by Margaret Atwood. It takes place in what was formerly part of the United States at a period of time when society has been taken over by a totalitarian theocracy. It's about the women who live in subjugation.

None of the atrocities in 'The Handmaid's Tale' are pure fiction. Everything Margaret wrote was something that has happened somewhere in the world to human beings.

I'm trying to make people understand: yes, women are oppressed in 'The Handmaid's Tale.' But the men are also oppressed, too. It's just a very scary world for anyone.

I used to think feminism was a liberating force - now I see many of those people are just censors under a different name.

We've come into the world of '1984,' but it turns out to be '1984'-Lite.

Women have to be extremely careful about choosing something that they consider an act of defiance that can really be used to further their enslavement.

'1984' is not a wonder tale. Not only could it happen, but it has happened, but under different names.

Orwell's '1984' convinced me, rightly or wrongly, that Marxism was only a quantum leap away from tyranny. By contrast, Huxley's 'Brave New World' suggested that the totalitarian systems of the future might be subservient and ingratiating.

Our age has seen the birth of totalitarian systems and forms of tyranny which would not have been possible in the time before the technological leap forward.

'1984' is terrifyingly relevant. It generates a political conversation, but it's an exciting piece of theatre. Every day, there are things to be spawned from Orwell's mind, whether it's in England or America, terrorist-related or government-related.

The fact that Facebook presents facial recognition programmes as a desirable development, well, that in itself is a decisive step toward fascism, as far as I'm concerned.

'The Handmaid's Tale' is a horrifying and horrifyingly possible vision of the future.

'The Handmaid's Tale' is not a book or show advocating enslaving women or creating a theocracy. It's not glorifying that. It's talking about what happens if that happens.

I really hope that men read 'The Power' and watch 'The Handmaid's Tale' and read 'The Handmaid's Tale.'

The answer to 1984 is 1776.

Every member of the society spies on the rest, and it is his duty to inform against them. All are slaves and equal in their slavery... The great thing about it is equality... Slaves are bound to be equal.

I used to wonder: Is Huxley right or is Orwell right? It turns out they're both right. First you get the new world state and endless diversions as you are disempowered. And then, as we are watching, credit dries up, and the cheap manufactured goods of the consumer society are no longer cheap. Then you get the iron fist of Oceania, of Orwell's 1984.

I demanded more rights for women because I know what women had to put up with.

It was a place that is trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break his spirit, so that he accepts that he is No. 6 and will live there happily as No. 6 for ever after. And this is the one rebel that they can't break.

The prolonged slavery of women is the darkest page in human history.

As a reader, I've always been interested in dystopian novels like 'Nineteen Eighty-four'.

Male privilege and entitlement are dying a very painful death; no one gives up power without a struggle.

In most of history, societies have not been free. It's a very rare society that is free. The default condition of human societies is tyranny.

I think many people in my community had very different kinds of mothers: they had mothers who acquiesced in the system of male and white-supremacist domination, and my mother never did. She just could not do it. It just wasn't in her.