Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar is headed to the big screen with filmmaker Deepa Mehta set to direct, Variety reports.
Mehta, known for her film adaptations of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy, will also write the screenplay for the movie.
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Doshi’s 2019 novel, her first, follows Antara, a young woman in India who takes care of her mother, Tara, who is suffering from dementia. Antara and her mother have had a difficult relationship; Tara was a neglectful parent when Antara was a child.
In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the novel as “a landmark portrait of toxic parenting and its tangled aftermath.” The book, originally published in India with the title Girl in White Cotton, was a finalist for the Booker Prize when it was released in the U.K. in 2020. Overlook published the novel in the U.S. earlier this year.
“Depicting complicated human connections are what drive most of my projects, and I look forward to delving into the complex, layered and at times surprisingly dark mother-daughter relationship that is so shockingly illustrated in this novel,” Mehta said.
Doshi reacted to news of the adaptation on Instagram, writing, “Thrilled to announce that Academy Award nominee Deepa Mehta is set to adapt Burnt Sugar into a feature film. I first encountered her work in the beautiful film Water, with the mesmerizing @lisaraniray. This news is just dreamy!”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
