Paramount Television and Anonymous Content have bagged the rights to adapt Gregory David Roberts’s bestselling novel Shantaram into a television series, according to reports. They have also struck a deal for Roberts’s follow-up novel, The Mountain Shadow.

Set in the 1970s, Shantaram chronicles the story of Lin, a writer turned bank robber who escapes a maximum security Australian prison and flees to Bombay. Changing his name to Shantaram, Lin learns Marathi and reinvents himself as a doctor who looks after the residents of the slum where he lives. Shantaram was published in 39 languages and sold more than six million copies worldwide.

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The 2013 novel was previously set to be adapted as a feature film by Johnny Depp, featuring Mira Nair as the director, Joel Edgerton in the lead, and Roberts writing the screenplay, but the production went nowhere.

In a statement, Roberts said that television was the “perfect medium” for the novel. “I’m honoured and humbled in equal measure as a writer, and thrilled for the many readers who have hoped that Shantaram would become a vivid screen experience,” Roberts said.