I know what you mean about not wanting a good book like that to end. I’ve had the honor and pleasure of having many people tell me that about my last book, Narcisa, which is one of the reasons I spent two years rewriting it for a larger readership.

Since then, a great new publisher miraculously came along, suddenly wanting to take it to the next level.  I’ve even got a sequel in progress, just in case it does as well as we hope it will the next time around.

Not sure it the mainstream reading world is ready for the likes of Narcisa, but you never fucking know. Stranger things have happened. Just look at how well Shantaram has done.

I really believe there’s a hunger for work with balls in this dumbed-down ”reality show” cultural wasteland the world is turning into. Sooner or later, that’s bound to work in our favor.

Speaking of sequels, from what I understand from reliable souces, Greg Roberts is hard at work on a sequel to Shantaram. Don’t know when it’ll be out, but I know it’s in the works.

As far as doing a movie of a literary work of that scope, I believe there’s a way, but it’s gonna require some thinking outside the box on the part of producers. There’s a lot of books that would lend themselves beautifully to a visual medium, that at the same time wouldn’t fit in the box of a 2 hour feature film format (which was originally devised as a strictly money-making proposition back in the day. Purely popcorn sales and asses in seats). In the future, I think there’s gonna be a bigger market for 5 and 10 part ”mini-series” type film productions. It’s a logical progression if serious filmmakers ever want to start tackling ambitious literary works and converting them into moving imagery. Can you imagine something like 1OO YEARS OF SOLITUDE as a 2 hour feature film? Ridiculous! But as a mini-series, with the right director, something like that would totally revolutionize the arts.