Coen Brothers to Direct Film Version of Chabon Novel

Joel and Ethan Coen will adapt and direct a film version of Pulitzer Prize–winner Michael Chabon’s novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (HarperCollins, 2007), the Guardian reported. Scott Rudin, who is also developing a screen version of Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Random House, 2000), will produce the picture along with the brothers. In 2000, Rudin produced Chabon’s Wonder Boys (Villard, 1995).

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, to be billed as a “noir thriller,” follows a private detective as he investigates the killing of a heroin-addicted chess phenomenon. The murder mystery takes place in Sitka, Alaska, the fictional homeland of Jewish refugees displaced after World War II. As the story unfurls, the community faces threats of a second dislocation, as the U.S. government makes plans to return the land to Alaskan natives.

The Coen brothers’ most recent film, No Country For Old Men, based on the 2005 novel by Cormac McCarthy, has been their largest commercial success and garnered eight Academy Award nominations this year.