Book· 2016· Science Fiction

The Power

by Naomi Alderman

The Power: it draws on 1 recorded source.

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What influenced The Power

The works this one is recorded as drawing on.

The Handmaid's Tale

Book · 1985

InfluenceHIGH

Naomi Alderman wrote the novel while mentored by Margaret Atwood (Rolex mentorship programme) and named the book behind it: "I'd been to an Orthodox Jewish primary school where every morning the boys said, 'Thank you God for not making me a woman.' If you put that together with The Handmaid's Tale in your head, something will eventually go fizz! Boom!" (Telegraph, 2012). The Power inverts Gilead: women gain the physical upper hand.

About the work

The Power

Its central premise is of women developing the ability to release electrical jolts from their fingers, which allows them to become the dominant sex. In 2017, it won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.