Alka Joshi’s The Henna Artist is headed to the small screen.
Netflix is developing Joshi’s 2020 novel as a series, to be produced by Miramax TV, Deadline reports.
The Henna Artist tells the story of a young woman in India who leaves her abusive husband and moves to the city of Jaipur, where she finds work as a henna artist catering to an upper-class clientele.
The novel, the first in a planned trilogy, was a pick for Reese Witherspoon’s popular book club; the actor praised the book as “rich and complex.” Joshi published the second installment in the trilogy, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, in June; the third book is expected to be published in 2023.
Netflix’s adaptation will star Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire), who will executive produce alongside writer Sri Rao and Michael Edelstein (Desperate Housewives). Pinto, Rao, and Edelstein will all serve as executive producers.
Rao shared news of the adaptation on Instagram, writing, “It’s always fun to celebrate the successes—and this deal with @netflix is by far the biggest of my career. But this is actually a story 20 years in the making…This was a long and hard road, but my hope is that the road will now be a little less bumpy for all the South Asian American artists who are on journeys of their own.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
