Booker winner to be TV series
The Book er Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain is set to be turned into a TV series after big-name American producers snapped up the rights to adapt the Glasgow-set book.
First-time author Douglas Stuart has clinched a deal which will see him adapt his own novel, which took him more than a decade to write.
Hollywood producers Scott Rudin and Eli Bush, who have behind hit movies including Lady Bird, Ex Machina, Eighth Grade and Mid90s have confirmed they have acquired the rights to the Glasgow-born writer’s debut.
Rudin, whose other films include No Country For Old Men, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network, and Rudin, whose other credits include Uncut Gems, Fences and Steve Jobs, will be working with production company A24, which has made series like Ramy and Euphoria, to adapt Shuggie Bain.
They have described Stuart, who wrote Shuggie Bain while working as a fashion designer in New York, as “an incredibly talented and sophisticated writer.”
The writer shot to fame earlier this year when the first reviews of Shuggie Bain began to emerge in the United States, where it was published first.
He became only the second Scottish author to win the Booker Prize last month, with the judges declaring Shuggie Bain was “destined to be a classic.”
Partly inspired by his own experiences of growing up in a 1980s Glasgow as the city struggled under the policies of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Shuggie Bain depicts the relationship b et ween a scho ob oy and his alcoholic mother, and the youngster's struggles fitting in at school. The book is dedicated to Stuart’s own mother, who died of alcoholism when he was just 16. An official announcement from
A24 and Scott Rudin Productions said: “Douglas Stuart is an incredibly talented and sophisticated writer, capturing his world and characters with the kind of authenticity, rhythm, vivid detail, and heartbreaking emotion that you rarely see in any book, let alone a debut novel. "We are so excited to work with him to tell this p owerful and deeply moving story in a new way .” Stuart said: “I am thrilled to be partnering with A24 and Scott Rudin Productions in bringing Shuggie Bain to the screen.
“I often thought of the book in cinematic terms."