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SPRING 2007
I’ve just returned from a hilarious literary festival in
Mumbai where, during Geoff Dyer’s account of being so stoned
in Amsterdam that he couldn’t put on his trousers, the whole
city was plunged into darkness by a three-hour power cut. He, and
the various other writers, nobly continued their readings by the
light of a mobile phone. Another high spot was a cocktail party
given for me by the people who have set up India’s first retirement
village, where I talked about my novel “These Foolish Things”.
This is a comedy about outsourcing the elderly to India, and the
way things are going – the British already travel there for
new hips – I bet it’ll soon mutate from fiction to fact.
I’ve just finished the screenplay for the film, which is due
to shoot in India later this year..
Meanwhile my new novel “In the Dark” is published on
3 May. Set in the First World War, it’s a dank and sexy story
about a profiteering butcher – click onto my previous News
for the details. I’ll be speaking about it at the Italian
Institute on 16 April, at the Good Housekeeping Books Day on 4 May,
at the Aberdeen Literary Festival on 13 May, the Redbridge Festival
on 22 May, the Hay Festival on June 1, at the Edinburgh Festival
and various other venues that haven’t been fixed up yet.
I’m also writing various screenplays. For the BBC I’m
adapting the Diary of Anne Frank into five half-hour episodes, and
writing a drama about Shirley Porter, the gerrymandering Leader
of Westminster Council (based on Andrew Hosken’s book). Also
for the BBC, I’m adapting Virginia Ironside’s terribly
funny book about being 60, “No I Don’t Want to Join
a Book Club” which Julie Walters is to star in, at Christmas.
Then there’s new movie interest in my novel “The Stand-In”
and hopefully an imminent production of “Tulip Fever”,
though I’ve learnt not to hold my breath over that one. Over
any of them, actually…Still, at this stage they’re all
humming along and my study is filled with toppling piles of scripts
which, when they get too tall, fall onto the floor and are trodden
on by the dog. The cat, on the other hand, always choose to sleep
on the exact piece of paper one is working on, how do they know?
Do email me at info@deborahmoggach.com
if you fancy, I love hearing from you.
Deborah Moggach.
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