by Rita Baladad
Quick Summary
I was delighted to attend Margaret Atwood's booktalk of her new novel Hag-Seed, a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest.
I was delighted to attend Margaret Atwood's booktalk of her new novel Hag-Seed, a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Atwood's sharp, wicked sense of humor comes through not only in her writing but also at her author readings: in explaining her writing, she quipped "Why make things up when life offers itself to you so bounteously?"
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Hag-Seed is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project wherein well-known authors retell a Shakespeare work. Started in October 2015, the project so far has four novels: Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time (The Winter's Tale); Howard Jacobson's Shylock is My Name (The Merchant of Venice); Anne Tyler's The Vinegar Girl (The Taming of the Shrew); and now Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed (The Tempest).
Margaret Atwood's website descibes Hag-Seed:
. . . theater director Felix has been unceremoniously ousted from his role as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Fesitval. When he lands a job teaching theater in a prison, the possibility of revenge presents itself - and his cast find themselves taking part in an interactive and illusion-ridden version of The Tempest . . .
Scheduled release date is October 2016; the publisher is Penguin Random House.