Jo Nesbø plans 'crime noir' version of Macbeth

[The Guardian, 14 january 2014]

Norwegian thriller writer joins authors including Anne Tyler and Margaret Atwood writing fresh versions of Shakespeare

Alison Flood

Photograph: Linda Nylind

After plumbing the depths to which humanity can sink in his bestselling thrillers starring the long-suffering cop Harry Hole, Norway's greatest literary export, Jo Nesbø, is set to venture into his darkest setting yet after being commissioned to retell 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," said Nesbø of Macbeth. "A main character who has the moral code and the corrupted mind, the personal strength and the emotional weakness, the ambition and the doubts to go either way … No, it does not feel too far from home."

Nesbø, whose thrillers have sold more than 20m copies worldwide, is the latest author to be signed to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, which from 2016 will see writers including Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson and Howard Jacobson retelling plays from Shakespeare's canon. He is the first author to take on one of Shakespeare's tragedies, with Atwood plumping instead for The Tempest, Jacobson for The Merchant of Venice, Anne Tyler for The Taming of the Shrew and Winterson for The Winter's Tale. 

The Norwegian author said Shakespeare's story of an ambitious general who murders the king while he sleeps and seizes power for himself was "close to my heart because it tackles topics I've been dealing with since I started writing".

His own series detective, Harry Hole, is a "good but troubled cop who operates on his own personal code and often goes against superiors' instructions". An alcoholic with demons to confront, Hole has variously caught bank robbers and serial killers, been stabbed, shot at and beaten, and – in the No 1 bestseller Phantom – been left for dead in a sewer.

Macbeth, meanwhile, has demons of his own to confront after murdering Duncan ("Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?") and both characters face troubled personal relationships, Hole with Rakel Faulke, and Macbeth with his murderous Lady. ("Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, /And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood.")

"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."

Becky Hardie, who acquired Nesbø's Macbeth for the Hogarth series, said that "from the very start we wanted The Hogarth Shakespeare to surprise and excite readers of all kinds from all over the world", and that "having an international thriller writer of Jo Nesbø's stature and popularity on board is the perfect realisation of that wish".

"We can't wait to see what Jo does with Shakespeare's murderous play," said Hardie, deputy publishing director at Chatto & Windus/Hogarth. The 2016 publication date coincides with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.