Offred sees her friend give birth, evoking memories of her feminist mother.

Margaret Attwood’s multi-award-winning futuristic dystopian novel.

The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness.

But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.

Abridged by Katie Campbell.

Read by Buffy Davis.

Producer: Sally Avens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 1995. Show less