Ezra Klein

I don't even really think it's going to be China. It's each other.

I don't even really think it's going to be China. It's each other.

You've talked a bit about beginning to compose The Handmaid's Tale in West Berlin in 1984. So the year I was born, actually, and before the wall fell. So how did being there then influence the way you thought about the book?

You've talked a bit about beginning to compose The Handmaid's Tale in West Berlin in 1984. So the year I was born, actually, and before the wall fell. So how did being there then influence the way you thought about the book?

That makes me think of something I noticed when reading The Handmaid's Tale, which is how much of the book is occupied with how one communicates when they can't speak freely. And you get at this in this very embodied way. Literally, how would you do it? Where would you meet? What words would you use? How would you hold your body in those moments? It's very visceral.

That makes me think of something I noticed when reading The Handmaid's Tale, which is how much of the book is occupied with how one communicates when they can't speak freely. And you get at this in this very embodied way. Literally, how would you do it? Where would you meet? What words would you use? How would you hold your body in those moments? It's very visceral.

Tell me a bit about the regime you construct in The Handmaid's Tale. What does Gilead believe?

Tell me a bit about the regime you construct in The Handmaid's Tale. What does Gilead believe?

Certainly not. But it always struck me that, to our earlier conversation about the Bible, I think there's a wisdom in suggesting that the way a totalitarian regime like that could emerge is that it connects itself to the core stories of a society.

Certainly not. But it always struck me that, to our earlier conversation about the Bible, I think there's a wisdom in suggesting that the way a totalitarian regime like that could emerge is that it connects itself to the core stories of a society.

When I was looking at The Handmaid's Tale this week, I was really struck by its modernity. Even offhand lines just felt very specific to the moment. And three of them really stuck with me, and I wanted to talk with you about them. One... was this, you write, we lived as usual by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance. You have to work at it.

When I was looking at The Handmaid's Tale this week, I was really struck by its modernity. Even offhand lines just felt very specific to the moment. And three of them really stuck with me, and I wanted to talk with you about them. One... was this, you write, we lived as usual by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance. You have to work at it.

I've read enough interviews with you to know you kind of bat away questions of prescience. But it struck me reading that, that it's actually maybe one of the simple answers to why a number of your books have an extraordinary staying power and feel like they were a bit ahead of their time, which is simply that you seem pretty good at not ignoring, at simply asking, well, what if this is true?

I've read enough interviews with you to know you kind of bat away questions of prescience. But it struck me reading that, that it's actually maybe one of the simple answers to why a number of your books have an extraordinary staying power and feel like they were a bit ahead of their time, which is simply that you seem pretty good at not ignoring, at simply asking, well, what if this is true?

What if this continues? What if what I see is real?

What if this continues? What if what I see is real?

None of them are, right? Isn't that the thing about the gifts, in stories at least?

None of them are, right? Isn't that the thing about the gifts, in stories at least?

There's another line that struck me as particularly potent in the book, which is this one. You write, quote, how did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? And you're talking about the before world, in a way, our world, now the consumer world. But it just struck me as such a clear way of putting something of the human condition, not just insatiability, but a talent for insatiability.

There's another line that struck me as particularly potent in the book, which is this one. You write, quote, how did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? And you're talking about the before world, in a way, our world, now the consumer world. But it just struck me as such a clear way of putting something of the human condition, not just insatiability, but a talent for insatiability.