"[The] most daring part of Margaret's book is that, instead of a small town in the Bible Belt, she sets it in the most liberal area in the country, an Eastern campus," he said in an interview.
Released one year after 1984 had come and gone peacefully, despite George Orwell's frightening predictions, Atwood created a cautionary tale for the future.
And while Big Brother may not yet be watching us, as the millennium approaches experts say we should still fear Atwood's vision.
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"Though a little too extreme to be realistic," advises one Australian critic, "The Handmaid's Tale still offers a dire warning to humankind, predicting the worst for society is yet to come."