Hag-Seed Synopsis
Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other. It will boost his reputation. It will heal emotional wounds.
Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. Also brewing revenge.
After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall?
About This Edition
Margaret Atwood Press Reviews
Riotous, insanely readable and just the best fun... The novel builds to a fantastic climax of dark calamity... There is so much exuberance and heart and wonder in this novel that the only thing I want to happen next is for Atwood to rewrite the whole of Shakespeare. (No offence, Will.) -- Viv Groskop - Observer
A triumph... The book illuminates the breadth and depth of the whole play. The troupe's workshops on it fizz with perception as Atwood transmits the pleasurable buzz of exploring a literary masterpiece. There won't be a more glowing tribute to Shakespeare in his 400th anniversary year -- Peter Kemp - Sunday Times
Atwood reinterprets the play as a heartbreaking novel, told in gorgeous yet economical prose -- Editor's Choice - New York Times Book Review
Surpassingly brilliant... without question the cleverest neo-Shakespearean novel I have ever read... the learning and the critical analysis are worn exceptionally lightly, always subordinated to wit, invention, characterisation and slick twists of plot... wonderfully ingenious -- Jonathan Bate - The Times
An absolute triumph... ravishing... I am not ashamed to say that I didn't just have a lump in my throat by the end of Hag-Seed, I had tears on the fringed curtains of mine eyes -- Stuart Kelly - Scotland on Sunday
About Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
She is the author of more than twenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride and Alias Grace. Her novel, The Blind Assassin, won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
Author photo © George Whiteside
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