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A Suitable Boy, India’s turbulent past and the literature that emerged from Partition

A Suitable Boy

A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India - discover it again in this Radio 4 dramatisation.

A Suitable Boy is now a major 2020 BBC TV series, and one of the BBC's 100 novels that shaped our world. 
 
The award-winning BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Vikram Seth's masterpiece 
 
'The drama highlight of the year...this sumptuous production, wonderfully atmospheric, written with pace and performed, by an all-Indian cast, quite superbly. The novel may be vast but I was convinced by this version right from the start. Magnificent drama' - Radio Times 
 
A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly-observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century. 
 
The story unfolds through four middle-class families - the Mehras, Kapoors, Khans and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with. There are standards to be met and finding a husband for Lata becomes a family affair in which all the members are to play a part. The characters struggle, they try to buck the system, to break free of restraint, of interference - but ultimately their strength and sense of being comes from their family and friends. It is a celebration of ordinariness; a beautifully composed story that is an affirmation of family and friendship. 
 
In his sweeping epic, Vikram Seth has created an entire world filled with warmth, humour, pathos, tragedy - in short, life. Recorded on location in India, A Suitable Boy is made by the production team behind the award-winning Bleak House and The Handmaid's Tale. 
 
Shortlisted for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, 1993. 
Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1994. 
Winner of the WH Smith Literary Award, 1994. 
 
Dramatised and directed by John Dryden. A Goldhawk Production.

Vikram Seth

Laurel Lefkow

Michael Neil

Barbara Barnes

Mark Leake

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

A BBC Radio 3 dramatisation of Vikram Seth's verse novel about the lives and loves of a group of twentysomethings in 1980s San Francisco 
 
Award-winning novelist Vikram Seth is renowned worldwide for his magnum opus A Suitable Boy. But his dazzling debut, though less well-known, is equally innovative, masterly and ambitious. First published in 1986. and inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, it is written entirely in verse, comprising almost 600 stanzas of rhyming sonnets. 
 
This epic poem focusses on the interconnected stories of five young professionals, as they make their way in the 'unfettered city' of San Francisco in the '80s. There's lonely computer engineer John; his sculptor ex-girlfriend Jan, a drummer in a heavy-metal band; his best friend Phil, a divorced dad who's turned his back on Silicon Valley to become a peacenik; lawyer Liz, devoted to her cranky, elderly cat Charlemagne and Ed, Liz's brother, a fervent Christian torn between his faith and his homosexuality. 
 
We follow them from coffee shops to concerts, parties to peace protests, Sonoma Valley wineries to singles bars as they forge (and break) friendships, flirt, date, start relationships, split up and try again with someone new. Their search for romance, fulfilment and self-realisation - for 'someone who will do for love, and who may love us too' - will bring them happiness, heartbreak, joy and pain... 
 
Not merely a portrait of youthful love and loss, but also of a time and a place - San Francisco at its zenith, before gentrification and the tech giants took over - Seth's delightful verse narrative is by turns funny, playful, lyrical and profound. This BBC Radio 3 adaptation, first broadcast in 1999, stars Mark Leake as John, with Barbara Barnes as Liz, Laurel Lefkow as Jan and Michael Neil as Phil. 
 
 
Production credits 
Written by Vikram Seth 
Produced by Ekene Akalawu 
 
Cast 
John - Mark Leake 
Liz - Barbara Barnes 
Jan - Laurel Lefkow 
Phil - Michael Neil 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 7-11 June 1999 
 
©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Vikram Seth

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A Suitable Boy, India’s turbulent past and the literature that emerged from Partition

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