Author's debut teleplay, 'Next People', will explore politics, sex and religion in the US
Salman Rushdie will soon be able to add "screenwriter" to his extensive literary CV. The author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses is to script a new drama series for US network Showtime, home of hit programmes Dexter, Nurse Jackie and The Big C.
Rushdie, who has been living in New York in recent years, has been wooed by the cable network to write an ambitious drama about contemporary American society. "Next People" is set to explore the US at a time of rapid change, taking in politics, sex, religion, science and technology, with Rushdie writing the first script and executive producing the series with UK-based production company Working Title TV.
The drama will be a first move into TV writing for the author, who started out as an advertising copywriter before embarking on a literary career that saw him win the Booker prize for Midnight's Children before being forced into hiding for a decade when his novel The Satanic Verses attracted a fatwa from Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomenei in 1989. Rushdie is also currently at work on a memoir of that troubled era, due to be published next year.
The writer has ventured into TV before, hosting an episode of the PBS "Charlie Rose" chat show in 2006. He is also co-scriptwriter for the film adaptation of Midnight's Children, currently being made by Canadian-American director Deepa Mehta. He's also made a number of cameo appearances acting in films: as himself, in 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary, and as obstetrician Dr Masani in Then She Found Me in 2006.
Nor is Rushdie the only author to be moving from page to screen. Husband-and-wife novelists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman are currently developing their own TV series, Hobgoblin, for HBO. Its theme has raised some eyebrows ? Hobgoblin will tell the story of a group of conmen and stage magicians fighting the Nazis during the second world war ? but Chabon has form on this subject; his 2000 Pulitzer prize winning novel Kavalier and Clay featured both a Nazi plotline and a comic book hero inspired by Harry Houdini.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/11/salman-rushdie-writes-tv-drama
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