To protest widespread book bans in the U.S., Canadian author Margaret Atwood has collaborated with her publishers on a fireproof edition of her most famous—and often banned—novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. 

The unique issue was produced by Rethink, an independent creative agency, and made in Toronto by the bookbinding studio The Gas Company Inc.. It was produced with a black cinefoil dust jacket, white heat shield foil pages hand-sewn with nickel wire, phenolic hard cover, stainless steel head and tail bands, and Kapton high temperature adhesive.

The short promotional video below shows Atwood wielding a flamethrower at this very special, noncombustible copy.

“I never thought I’d be trying to burn one of my own books… and failing,” she commented in a press release. “The Handmaid’s Tale has been banned many times—sometimes by whole countries, such as Portugal and Spain in the days of Salazar and the Francoists, sometimes by school boards, sometimes by libraries. Let’s hope we don’t reach the stage of wholesale book burnings, as in Fahrenheit 451. But if we do, let’s hope some books will prove unburnable—that they will travel underground, as prohibited books did in the Soviet Union.”

Margaret Atwood Uses a Flamethrower on the ‘Unburnable’ Edition of The Handmaid’s Tale in Protest of Book Burning Across the U.S.
https://app.asana.com/0/1135954362417873/1202331640263586/f
Credit: Penguin Random House

The proceeds from the book’s sale will go to PEN America, the mighty anti-censorship organization.