Literary places in Cambridge

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

Atwood wrote the novel while at Harvard and set the Republic of Gilead in the real Cambridge she knew. The old university town keeps its shape, but its landmarks are put to a theocracy's uses: the campus becomes a walled compound, the library a secret-police headquarters, the brick wall along the avenue a gallows. The map runs from Harvard Square through the Yard to the banks of the Charles.

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