JUNE 8, 2022:
NEW YORK (AP) — A specially commissioned, unburnable edition of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been auctioned for $130,000, Sotheby’s announced Tuesday (June 7, 2022). Proceeds will be donated to PEN America, which advocates for free expression. The 384-page book consists mainly of Cinefoil, a specially treated aluminum product, and was announced last month at PEN’s annual fundraising gala. To help promote the initiative, Atwood agreed to be filmed attempting — unsuccessfully — to incinerate a prototype with a flame thrower. “I’m very pleased that the one-of-a-kind Unburnable Book of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ has raised so much money for PEN America,” Atwood said in a statement.
MAY 24, 2022:
NEW YORK (AP) — Margaret Atwood has imagined apocalyptic disaster, Dystopian government and an author faking her own death. But until recently she had spared herself the nightmare of trying to burn one of her own books. With a flamethrower. On Monday night (May 23, 2022), during PEN America’s annual gala, Atwood and Penguin Random House announced that a one-off, unburnable edition of “The Handmaid’s Tale” would be auctioned through Sotheby’s New York. They launched the initiative with a brief video that shows Atwood attempting in vain to incinerate her classic novel about a totalitarian patriarchy. Proceeds will be donated to PEN, which advocates for free expression around the world.
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