A Suitable Boy, novel by Vikram Seth, published in 1993, has been made into a drama series to be aired on on BBC.

At 1,349 pages (1,488 pages softcover) and 591,552 words, the book is one of the longest novels ever published in a single volume in the English language.

Vikram Seth’s classic novel is being adapted Andrew Davies, who recently brought Sanditon and Les Miserables to the small screen. A Suitable Boy starts Sunday 26th July at 9pm. The series will run for six episodes. 

Hugh Tomlinson wrote in the Times on Thursday July 09 2020, 5.00pm:

The writer Andrew Davies, director Mira Nair and cast of the BBC adaptation of Vikram Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy tell Hugh Tomlinson why the post-partition love story is so timely.

A dark vintage saloon idles in dappled autumn sunshine outside a colonial-era bungalow in northern India. Rickshaw drivers lounge in the shade and gardeners tend the allotments beyond.

At the centre of this tranquil vision of 1950s India, a vicious row between mother and daughter is under way.

“I love him . . . I will marry him,” the defiant teenager declares, and is slapped across the face by her raging mother. As the girl flees in tears, the distraught matriarch sinks into a chair, offered tea by her elder daughter.

“Tea, tea and more tea, when we are ruined,” the mother laments.

Read the full Times article here

Listen to Vikram Seth's BBC Radio4 Desert Island Discs interview here