Handmaid's Tale Banned in Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) Schools

And everyone and their pet canary wants me to "comment."

But I can’t comment when I don’t know why it’s been banned. For describing what an American theological dictatorship could look like? Because it portrays evil? Is it evil to portray evil? If so, bye-bye Bible and Shakespeare. Because, as part of a power play, it perverts Christianity and rewrites the Bible , unlike anyone else, ever? Because lots of other places have banned this book and Alberta didn’t want to be left out? Because it has sex in it, even though it’s not sexy sex and anyone in Gilead of sane mind would run a mile before having any actual enjoyable sex? Because it has head coverings? Why?

Things are increasingly scrambled, because the Alberta government is now saying it didn’t do the dirty deed, the Edmonton school board did, in an act of “malicious compliance.” Compliance with an order the government itself issued and that school boards were compelled to implement? Whatever do they mean?

Because I am a helpful person, I did write a nice, clean little story on X-formerly-Twitter that can hardly be accused of being pornographic, since it doesn’t have any sex in it at all, either “explicit” or “implied.” Here it is:

I’m due to be in Calgary, Alberta, in November. That should be fun. Especially since Albertans are per capita the top readers in Canada, and last time I looked they were pretty independent-minded. I expect they will have a few things to say. Oh, and I agree: kids in kindergarten should not be reading this book. I wrote it for people over thirteen. (Though when I remember what I was reading when I was thirteen… all kinds of trash! And in right there in the high school classroom! The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy! Adultery! Wife-selling! Fornication, implied! Eek!)

In lieu of “commenting,” I offer the speech I made just this morning, over Zoom, to the PEN International Congress in Krakow, Poland. It touches on book banning.

Here it is:

PEN Speech. Krakow. September 2, 2025.

Hello, I’m Margaret Atwood, speaking to you from Toronto, Canada. I would very much like to be with you in person in the beautiful city of Krakow. But since I cannot be there, here I am onscreen, thanks to the wonders of modern technologyFellow writers, it’s a great honour for me to be addressing you at this PEN Congress today, and in such excellent company. My late partner Graeme Gibson and I first visited Poland in 1984, when it was still part of the Soviet bloc. We knew several Polish writers then – including Ryszard Kapuściński and Tadeusz Konwicki) – and have always admired the way Polish artists have managed hard times – with inventiveness, creativity, courage, and cunning. And, in those far distant days, with samizdat – which were manuscripts that could not be officially published, but that were copied out and passed from hand to hand, from writer to writer. Graeme and I were given some samizdat during that visit to Poland. We couldn’t read it – it was in Polish -- but the fact of its existence was symbolic, and what it symbolized was hope.

In these present days, with the world undergoing a period of profound instability, Poland once again finds itself in a potentially vulnerable geopolitical position. It’s fitting that this International PEN Congress should be held in Poland: risk management has been part of Polish DNA for a long time, and being a writer is in itself a risky business.

Why? Artists of all kinds – but especially writers – are always among the first to face the firing squads when dictatorships are on the rise. They have no armies. They have no actual legislative or physical power. They have no voter base. They are isolated individuals, and thus easy to eliminate. Above all, they say things that autocrats don’t want to hear, and don’t want others to hear. This is true whether the autocrat is of the right or of the left, and whether religious or secular. Artists are a threat to such people because their art presents full humanity, in all its complexity – the good, the bad, and the ugly. This full humanity is what autocrats wish to destroy, in order to replace it with propaganda featuring perfect versions of themselves. To burn a book is to burn part of the human spirit. And book burnings – and book bannings – are on the rise.Graeme and I and a small group of other writers started PEN Canada (English-language) in 1983 to address the plight of writers who were being banned, exiled, silenced, and murdered in other countries – yes, it was happening back then, over forty years ago. In recent decades it has spread. Hundreds of journalists have been targeted and indeed killed because journalists report what they see, and they often see what they are not supposed to see. They bear witness. The word “martyr” means witness. Murdered journalists are martyrs to the truth.

In his 1981 biography of George Orwell, George Woodcock said,

''Revolutions are not realizations of the idealistic visions of writers; they are sociopolitical eruptions in which the collapse of an existing structure of power creates a vacuum into which many forces rush. . . . The freedom that may have been the dominant desideratum in the prerevolutionary period is the first victim of the struggle for power. And writers and other artists, whatever their roles before the revolution, now appear as challengers - because they represent the free intelligence - to all who seek to impose new forms of power. . . .''

We ourselves are living through what appears to be the collapse of an existing structure of power – that of the United States. Externally, the U.S. seems to be abdicating its position as the dominant world power. Internally, it appears to be turning its back on its one-time much celebrated status as an open, liberal democracy – the torch-carrier for freedom, a beacon of light to oppressed Soviet satellites during the Cold War – and flirting with the very kind of autocracy that it once stood so firmly against.

Outside its borders, other counties are no longer doing what it says – witness Russia, Israel, Ukraine, and India, just for example. Wars and power struggles are breaking out all over. And inside its borders, the present administration seems determined to destroy or co-opt American institutions that have been built up over centuries. A fair voting system, a judiciary independent of the executive power, just to name two. The secretary of Health Care, for instance, seems to be conducting some weird Social Darwinist experiment – survival of the fittest – let’s see who lives and who dies if we remove all protection against deadly diseases. What’s the goal? Who even knows? The elimination of poor people, because they aren’t healthy enough? It wouldn’t surprise me. The use of the military to intimidate civilians is another signpost; many countries in mid-century Europe were all too familiar with that.

One of the harbingers of autocratic takeovers is an attempt to control writers and artists, either by censoring them and dictating to them what sort of art they should produce – we saw a certain amount of that coming from the so-called academic left in North America and Britain over the past decade, twinned with online mobbing generally known as “cancel culture”– or by book banning and the intimidation of universities and media outlets, which we are now seeing on a rather large scale in the United States. The levers are money and lawsuits, but these have been quite effective. Most people with jobs are by nature fearful of challenging authority, or at least any authority with the power to fire them. I look back to the French Revolution – the prototype of all revolutions since – and remark merely that one of its first stated goals was freedom of expression, a value it espoused until its leaders gained power. Then, miraculous to behold, strict censorship set in, printing presses were smashed, and those who had published questionable views were beheaded. During the Terror, you could be executed for just being suspected of thinking counterrevolutionary thoughts – Thoughtcrime, as Orwell would have it. People entering the United States are currently having their phones and computers searched for evidence of Thoughtcrime against the Trump administration.

Self-supporting writers don’t fear being fired. Their employers are their readers. For this reason, they are often asked to speak about difficult subjects, and to say things publicly that many other people are thinking privately. And that is why I am here with you today – because I don’t have a job.

By sheer coincidence, just as I was writing this speech, news broke that a school board in Edmonton, Alberta – under direction from their provincial government -- had banned my book, The Handmaid’s Tale, from their school system – the classrooms, the libraries – because it was pornographic. That’s quite funny: the book has more often been criticized for not being pornographic – for having sex acts in it that are not sexy. Well, they aren’t supposed to be: it’s a Puritanical regime, after all. So in the Canadian media a minor tempest is raging, as this is the first-ever Canadian province-wide attempt at mass book banning. I’m in good company, however: Brave New World and 1984 are also on the list. I guess they don’t want young people thinking about dictatorships.

Cover of the 1984 I read in high school. It was the age of tawdry paperback covers in drugstores.

I’m happy to report that PEN Canada is protesting these book bannings. Its current Chair, Ira Wells, is the author of the recent book, On Book Banning (Biblioasis), so he knows the territory. Maybe the Alberta government will ban that book, too.

Which brings us back to PEN, the astonishing international organization of which we are members. From time to time, we PEN folk may ask ourselves – what use is all this? What can mere writers do about the massive world problems facing us? Wars, famines, genocides, climate crises? Is the pen really mightier than the sword? Not when you’ve got the noose around your neck. But until that moment – may it never come -- we can at least keep the door open a little, we can keep the candle burning, a little. We can give hope, a little, to those who’ve been imprisoned for what they’ve written. A little hope – it’s worth something. Actually, it’s worth a lot -- to know you have not been forgotten. Especially when, sometimes, a little hope is all a person has.

During our active time at PEN in the 1980s and 90s, PEN did manage to rescue some writers. But we did not rescue others. They died, or they were killed. It’s like everything else – nothing is foolproof. But that did not stop us from trying. And it is not stopping you.

So, fellow writers, I wish you all success at this conference. You will learn, you will inform others; you will debate, you will pass resolutions, you will deepen your commitment to the high importance of language and story, and to the principles of freedom of expression and fundamental human rights. Or so I firmly trust.

Thank you, and fare well.

.Next time: The Woman Thing, Part 2: Is it better in Gilead if you happen to be pregnant?

UPDATE: As of end of September 2, Alberta has “paused” its controversial school book bannings. We await further clarification.