In Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic republic that rules the former United States is Gilead.
Gilead is established after a fundamentalist group called the Sons of Jacob overthrows the United States government. The regime uses biblical rhetoric, rigid social classes, and state-controlled reproduction to organize society. The novel is narrated by Offred, a Handmaid assigned to bear a child for a powerful Commander and his wife.
Gilead is a fictional state, not the historical ancient region of Gilead mentioned in the Bible. The novel was first published in 1985, and its setting is commonly described as a near-future version of New England, especially the area around Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A related detail readers often ask about is the narrator's name: she is known publicly as Offred, a patronymic meaning she belongs to Commander Fred.