Hag-Seed is a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published in October 2016. A modern retelling of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the novel was commissioned by Random House as part of its Hogarth Shakespeare series.[1]
The novel centres on theatre director Felix who loses his job with Makeshiweg Theatre, and is exiled from his position in society, following his betrayal by a trusted colleague. Having suffered in isolation, Felix is granted the position of teaching in a prison literacy program in the Fletcher County Correctional Institute. Thus begins his plot of revenge against those who wronged him.[2]
The novel had varying reception among critics and audiences. A witty, dark and imaginative adaptation of Shakespeare's play, Hag-Seed manages to convincingly create a vengeful Duke Prospero from the slightly ridiculous, and certainly more sympathetic, director Felix. Dealing with themes of loss, revenge, a life of imprisonment and the concept of closure, Atwood uses Felix's lessons on The Tempest to the actor-inmates to demonstrate the parallels between her text and the original play.
The story culminates with a "fantastic climax of dark calamity"[3] in a metaphorical and literal storm.
Atwood's Hag-Seed can be considered an example of what Graham Wolfe calls theatre-fiction: "referring to novels and stories that engage in concrete and sustained ways with theatre as artistic practice and industry".[4]
