Seattle, September 19, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Author and former UN Assistant Secretary-General Lakshmi Puri’s acclaimed novel Swallowing the Sun is being developed as a multi-season web series, with screenplay work currently underway.
Speaking exclusively at the Jaipur Literature Festival in Seattle, Puri said the adaptation has made significant progress since it was announced last year, although no streaming platform or release date has been confirmed.
“So they are writing the screenplay and it’s, it’s, and then, you know, the whole process is ongoing,” she said.
Puri said the adaptation was announced in September last year and remains in development as the writing and other stages of production continue. She expressed hope that the series would eventually find a home on a major streaming platform.
The novel’s journey began at the Jaipur Literature Festival in early 2024, while its international edition was launched in Britain in February this year. Puri is now taking the international edition across the US, with engagements in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston.
She is scheduled to appear at JLF events in Seattle and Houston, besides participating in the South Asian Literature and Art festival and other literary programmes. One of her engagements coincides with Gandhi Jayanti, when she plans to discuss Mahatma Gandhi’s presence in Swallowing the Sun, which is set against the backdrop of India’s freedom struggle.
Puri described the novel as an instant bestseller that has also received critical acclaim. Marathi and Telugu translations are already available and, according to her, have also become bestsellers, while a Hindi edition is expected soon.
From family history to fiction
Puri said the idea for the novel developed from a story close to home after a career focused extensively on gender equality and women’s empowerment at the United Nations.
She felt fiction could advance the same cause by allowing readers to encounter questions of equality, agency and social change through the lives of individual characters.
“So I realised that this cause is best promoted through storytelling,” she said.
Her parents provided an important source of inspiration. Puri described them as feminists ahead of their time who placed a strong emphasis on education while remaining deeply connected with literature and culture.
Her mother, she said, was among the early women in Maharashtra to pursue postgraduate education and study law, while her father was a lawyer who contributed to work relating to the Constitution of India in support of B.R. Ambedkar. Both parents also wrote poetry.
Puri, however, stressed that the novel is fiction rather than a direct account of her parents’ lives. Their experiences and values helped shape its world, while its characters and narrative are fictional.
A pan-India story
Poetry and Marathi cultural and literary traditions form an important part of the novel, whose narrative travels across several parts of India, including Indore, Mumbai, Banaras, Shimla and Delhi.
While Maharashtra remains central to the story, Puri described the novel as a wider Indian narrative.
“So it’s a pan-India story, quintessentially Indian, but universal in appeal,” she said.
She characterised Swallowing the Sun as both an epic romance and a story of women’s empowerment, exploring how women a century ago found the courage to challenge restrictions and participate in India’s freedom struggle.
The title is drawn from a verse by saint-poet Muktabai. Puri said its imagery reflects the novel’s central belief in the power of faith, persistence and courage to make seemingly impossible achievements possible.
The author also connected the novel’s international journey with the global spread of Indian literature. She praised the Jaipur Literature Festival for taking Indian writing to audiences overseas while bringing international writers to India.
“And that osmosis has been a major contribution to spreading India’s soft power around the world,” she said.
Puri also expressed hope for the continued relevance of the written word in the age of artificial intelligence, returning to the human impulse at the heart of storytelling.
Swallowing the Sun brings together romance, poetry, women’s aspirations and India’s freedom struggle, while its translations and international edition continue to take the story to readers beyond its original English-language audience.
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