But there are no reflections at all about the actual composition or subject matter of the book itself. There are page counts I had a habit of writing down the pages completed as a way of urging myself on. There are books read, speeches given, trips made. I chronicle the finding of puffballs, always a source of glee dinner parties, with lists of those who attended and what was cooked illnesses, my own and those of others and the deaths of friends. In my journal there are the usual writerly whines, such as: 'I am working my way back into writing after too long away – I lose my nerve, or think instead of the horrors of publication and what I will be accused of in reviews.' There are entries concerning the weather rain and thunder come in for special mentions. The book was not called The Handmaid's Tale at first – it was called Offred – but I note in my journal that its name changed on 3 January 1985, when almost 150 pages had been written.

I began this book almost 30 years ago, in the spring of 1984, while living in West Berlin – still encircled, at that time, by the Berlin Wall.

Is it entertainment or dire political prophecy? Can it be both? I did not anticipate any of this when I was writing the book. Revellers dress up as Handmaids on Hallowe'en and also for protest marches – these two uses of its costumes mirroring its doubleness. The book has had several dramatic incarnations, a film (with screenplay by Harold Pinter and direction by Volker Schlöndorff) and an opera (by Poul Ruders) among them. People – not only women – have sent me photographs of their bodies with phrases from The Handmaid's Tale tattooed on them, ' Nolite te bastardes carborundorum' and 'Are there any questions?' being the most frequent. It has been expelled from high schools, and has inspired odd website blogs discussing its descriptions of the repression of women as if they were recipes. It has become a sort of tag for those writing about shifts towards policies aimed at controlling women, and especially women's bodies and reproductive functions: 'Like something out of The Handmaid's Tale' and 'Here comes The Handmaid's Tale' have become familiar phrases.

It has sold millions of copies worldwide and has appeared in a bewildering number of translations and editions. The Handmaid's Tale has not been out of print since it was first published, back in 1985.

The hand maids tale book