HBO is developing an OTT adaptation of Indian Canadian writer Rohinton Mistry’s 1996 shortlisted novel, “A Fine Balance,” starring Ritesh Batra, director of the critically acclaimed Irrfan Khan starrer, “The Lunchbox.” of the project.
The seven-part web series, Variety reports, is being produced by Blueprint Pictures, which helmed “A Very British Scandal” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and Northwood Entertainment, which was behind “Anne With An E.” . The footage will be shot in India from early June to November.
First published in Canada in 1995 by McLelland and Stewart, “A Fine Balance” won the Giller Prize in 1995 and was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize.
Mumbai-born St Xavier’s College alumnus Mistry’s first novel, “Such A Long Journey”, which was also shortlisted for the Booker in 1991, was made into a movie in 1998 starring veteran British-Indian actor Roshan Seth.
Reporting the story, Variety notes that “A Fine Balance,” which revolves around a wealthy widow, two tailors, and a young college student from very different sections of Indian society whose lives intersect in a small apartment, “shatters the political landscape. of India from the country’s independence in 1947 to the 21-month state of emergency declared by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi between 1975 and 1977”.
Since its publication, Variety adds, the book, most recently dramatized by the BBC for a radio play in 2021, has been regarded as one of the most important novels about India after independence.
It was selected by Oprah’s Book Club, a rare achievement for a Canadian novel at the time, and also won the 1996 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book Overall.
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