Radio review: Duffy delves into a Tale as old as time

Margaret Atwood’s feminist classic The Handmaid’s Tale, which some teachers want removed from the Leaving Cert English curriculum, was the hot topic on last week’s Liveline

A scene from the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale: the novel’s place on the Leaving Cert curriculum was the subject of debate on Liveline this week

In the dystopian near-future of Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, young women are not permitted to read. Literacy, in this repressive theocracy, is considered dangerous for girls being trained to be wives.

Atwood’s book resonated in Ireland at the time of its publication in 1985, when female bodily autonomy was still being policed by the state. This week marked the third anniversary of the legalisation of abortion. However, we still have a long way ...