In the spring of 1984 I began to write a novel that was not initially called “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
I wrote in longhand, mostly on yellow legal notepads, then transcribed my almost illegible scrawlings using a huge German-keyboard manual typewriter I’d…
The keyboard was German because I was living in West Berlin, which was still encircled by the Berlin Wall: The Soviet empire was still strongly in place, and was not to crumble for another five…
Every Sunday the East German Air Force…