Michael Chabon is the rare kind of writer who can garner critical acclaim and sell books by the yard. He’s teamed up with his wife Ayelet Waldman to write a television series for the US cable network HBO. The series, Hobgoblin, is about a group of illusionists and tricksters fighting the Nazis during World War II. It’s not the first time Chabon has ventured into this kind of territory: he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay. The novel included Nazi themes and a comic book character based on Harry Houdini.
In similar news, UK author Salman Rushdie is reported to be writing and executive producing a television series for the US Showtime cable network. The series, called Next People, is the first time the author of the Booker of Bookers prize-winning Midnight’s Children has ventured in writing for the screen. Typically, however, it is not lacking in ambition: its principal thematic concerns are reported to include “politics, sex, religion, science and technology”.