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Channel 4 to make film on Q And A
Indian diplomat's debut novel is also being made into a West End musical, reports Nabanita Sircar.
Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup's debut novel, Q And A, which has already won great acclaim in India is being made into a film by Channel 4 and is also being produced into a West End musical.
Swarup, director in the office of External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh was in London at the weekend to launch his book. He informed that composer Nitin Sawhney, playwright Tanika Gupta, theatre director Richard Jones and designer Ultz to make a musical based on the novel have approached him. The team is scheduled to visit India soon to work on the pilot.
The topical subject of the book has a universal appeal and has already been translated in 16 languages.
Senior Editor of the UK publisher of the book Jane Lawson of Doubleday said, "Channel 4 (Britain's fourth terrestrial television channel) has signed an agreement with us to have an exclusive right to produce the film. If they fail to make necessary progress in the next 18 months they lose out the right but they will make certain payment to the author."
Formally launched at the prestigious House of St Barnabas, followed by another launch at the Nehru Centre, Swarup informed, "There is also a two-book deal, I have to deliver."
"Having been an avid quizzer," Swarup said he wanted to "tap into the global phenomenon of the syndicated, televised quiz show, but in an off-beat way." He said he wanted to "show that knowledge is not the preserve of the educated elite and that even a 'street-kid' can possess the wisdom to win a quiz show."
Q and A is a colourful novel about how a penniless waiter from Mumbai, "the land of opportunities", becomes the biggest quiz-show winner in history.
Swarup, who has served in Turkey, the US, Ethiopia and the UK, said he wrote the book in two months and completed the task a day before he left London for Delhi at the end of his posting here on September 12, 2003.
