A Suitable Boy, the best-selling novel set in post-partition India, is being adapted for BBC One.
Screenwriter Andrew Davies, known for his adaptations of Pride And Prejudice and War And Peace, will be bringing the story to the small-screen.
The adaptation of Vikram Seth’s novel will be filmed on location in India, with what is expected to be an entirely non-white cast.
Davies said: “Lata’s trials of the heart speak as loudly to me now as when I first read Vikram’s epic novel two decades ago.
“She is a great literary heroine in the tradition of Jane Austen and George Eliot. But behind her stands a massive supporting cast of striking, funny, irrepressible characters and a vision of India in the 1950s that no reader can ever forget. It will make a wonderful series and I can’t wait to bring the magic of the book to life on-screen.”
Author Seth said: “I have carried with me for a long time the stories of Lata, her family and the many people they encounter… I greatly look forward to seeing them brought to life for television.”
The period drama was announced after the BBC outlined a raft of new commissions, including the adaptation of The War Of The Worlds, Little Women, and A Very English Scandal, about the trial of the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe.
