Norway’s best-selling crime writer Jo Nesbø has joined a cadre of writers taking part in the Hogarth Shakespeare project, that will see authors Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson and Anne Tyler retelling and modernizing some of Shakespeare’s most famous works.
Nesbø will be the first author to tackle one of the tragedies, with a reimagining of Macbeth. “A thriller about the struggle for power, set both in a gloomy, stormy crime noir-like setting and in a dark, paranoid human mind,” Nesbø told The Guardian about the project. “No, it does not feel too far from home.”
Nesbø, who rose to fame with his bleak thrillers about a detective named Harry Hole, also said that he will put his own twist on the tragic play. “Yes, it is a great story,” said Nesbø of Macbeth. “And, no, I will not attempt to do justice to William Shakespeare, nor the story. I will simply take what I find of use and write my own story. And, yes, I will have the nerve to call it Macbeth.”
The book, along with the other retold works, which will be published in 2016.