Shakespeare
The Tempest → Hag-Seed
Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed reimagines Shakespeare's The Tempest in the modern world while preserving many of the original play's central ideas about betrayal, revenge, power, and forgiveness. Shakespeare's Prospero becomes Felix, a theatre director who is betrayed by his colleagues and loses his position, eventually finding himself teaching Shakespeare to incarcerated men. As Felix directs a production of The Tempest inside a prison, the play begins to mirror his own life in surprising ways. The prisoners take on the roles of Shakespeare's characters, allowing Atwood to explore both the original story and the transformative power of theatre. Like Prospero, Felix becomes consumed by the desire to settle old scores, but the process of creating the play forces him to confront his own grief and obsession. Atwood keeps recognizable elements of The Tempest—including its characters, themes, and structure—while giving them new meaning in a contemporary setting.
Where Shakespeare explores forgiveness and letting go through Prospero's magical island, Atwood asks whether art and storytelling can help someone find a way back from anger, grief, and revenge.
Macbeth by Jo Nesbø (2018)
A Dark Crime Thriller Retelling of William Shakespeare's Macbeth
In Macbeth, bestselling Norwegian crime novelist Jo Nesbø transforms William Shakespeare's famous tragedy into a gritty psychological thriller set in a corrupt, rain-soaked industrial town during the 1970s. Instead of a Scottish nobleman, Macbeth is a respected police inspector and leader of an elite SWAT team whose growing ambition threatens to destroy everything he has achieved.
As organized crime and drug trafficking plague the city, Macbeth becomes entangled in a dangerous struggle for power. Manipulated by the ruthless drug lord Hecate and encouraged by his ambitious lover, Lady, he begins a descent into betrayal, paranoia, violence, and guilt. Shakespeare's witches, political intrigue, and murderous ambition are reimagined within a world of corrupt law enforcement, criminal organizations, and ruthless competition.
Why This Retelling Matters: Nesbø demonstrates how Shakespeare's exploration of ambition, moral corruption, guilt, and the destructive pursuit of power remains relevant centuries later. By replacing royal politics with police corruption and organized crime, Macbeth offers a chilling contemporary interpretation of one of literature's most enduring tragedies, proving that the darker elements of human nature transcend time and setting.