Available today: Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold by Margaret Atwood
****4/5 stars- loved it
The grand Margaret Atwood takes on
The Tempest for Hogarth Press.
Recommended readers:
- If you’re a fan of Margaret Atwood,
- a Shakespeare aficionado,
- and if you like literary re-imaginings, this one is for you.
Here’s my Rankings:
- 4/5 for characters
- 4/5 for plot
- 4/5 overall
REVIEW FROM BOOKS FOR HER:
The next in Hogarth Press’ project to bring Shakespeare to current fiction, Hag-Seed reimagines Shakespeare’s Tempest among a troupe of correctional facility thespians (really) and their somewhat unhinged teacher. All of Shakespeare’s characters are here, or portrayed here, by the non-violent offenders of the Fletcher County Correctional Institute, centering on the core of Prospero/Felix, a former theatre director bent on revenge for the loss of his former job by the weasel Antonio/Tony, who is accompanied in his quest to visit horror on his enemies by the ghost of his long-dead daughter Miranda. (Very good at madness and mania, is Margaret Atwood.) I found myself really rooting for all of the inmates who learn to access the universal themes of William Shakespeare though acting and 16th century curses and insults. A very readable way to get your Shakespeare in, and so smart I know I didn’t even catch it all. Check out one of Goodread’s “Best Books of the Month,” available today.
See also Anne Tyler’s Vinegar Girl for Hogarth Press
Books for Her 