Atwood, 79, previously won the prize in 2000 for "The Blind Assassin," and "The Testaments," published last month, is the sequel to the Canadian author's best-selling 1985 novel, "The Handmaid's Tale." Evaristo, the first black woman to win the prize, tells the stories of 12 characters, mainly female and black aged 19 to 93, living in Britain in "Girl, Woman, Other." While the prize has been jointly awarded twice previously, the rules changed in 1993 limiting the award to one author. Atwood's book, eagerly awaited by fans, returns to the totalitarian state of Gilead some 15 years after the end of "The Handmaid's Tale," telling the story of three women. The bleak dystopian "The Handmaid's Tale," where women are banned from reading and writing and those that are fertile are forced into sexual servitude, was itself nominated for the Booker Prize.

Source: bd News24 October 14, 2019 22:52 UTC