Jo Nesbø to Retell Macbeth for a 21st Century Audience

The Hogarth Shakespeare, a major international publishing initiative across the Penguin Random House Group, has commissioned crime novelist Jo Nesbø to retell Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's darkest and most powerful tragedies.

"Macbeth is a story that is close to my heart because it tackles topics I've been dealing with since I started writing," says Nesbø. "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. A thriller about the struggle for power, set both in a gloomy, stormy crime noir-like setting and in a dark, paranoid human mind. No, it does not feel too far from home. And, yes, it is a great story. 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."

Nesbø joins an illustrious line-up of novelists on the new Hogarth Shakespeare list, which sees contemporary authors retelling Shakespeare's plays for a twenty-first century audience: Margaret Atwood has chosen The Tempest, Howard Jacobson The Merchant of Venice, Anne Tyler The Taming of the Shrew and Jeanette Winterson The Winter's Tale.

The series will launch in 2016 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.