Book Review: Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed:The Tempest Retold

In 2015 the Hogarth Shakespeare Project recruited a number of highly respected writers to retell some of the Bard’s tales for a modern audience – Jeanette Winterson, Howard Jacobson, Anne Tyler and now Margaret Atwood have contributed.

Written with the author’s characteristic flair, Atwood’s Hag-Seed is an imaginative retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Felix Phillips is Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. Felix, full of praise for his own abilities and far too fond of glitter, is planning to stage The Tempest when he gets booted from his job by his conniving right-hand man.

Felix hides out in a shanty and like his alter-ego Prospero, he broods and plots an elaborate vengeance. When he is appointed as an educator at a prison, Felix’s plans begin to take shape.

Like Shakespeare’s original, Hag-Seed is funny and poignant, and offers much to amuse and delight.