The 2020 Booker prize winner is coming to BBC One and iPlayer, adapted by its author. 

The BBC have announced that writer Douglas Stuart is adapting his award-winning debut novel Shuggie Bain for television.

Shuggie Bain is a heart-breaking story of pride, sexuality, addiction, and love. Inspired the writer’s own Glasgow childhood during the Thatcher years, it’s a powerful portrayal of a working-class family.

As well as the Booker Prize win, the novel became an international best-seller, published in 39 countries.

Here’s the synopsis:

Set during the 1980s, Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of a mother-son relationship in working class Glasgow. Shuggie’s mother Agnes – a luminous, glamourous star she has always believed herself to be – dreams of a house with its own front door, ordering a little happiness on credit.

Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion’s share of each week’s benefits – all the family has to live on.

To Shuggie, an effeminate boy who struggles to fit in, Agnes is his guiding light. He cares for her as she battles with alcoholism while he struggles to become the normal boy he desperately longs to be.

Douglas Stuart says:

“I am deeply grateful to the BBC and A24 for their belief in Shuggie Bain. I’m thrilled to bring the Bain family to the screen and the opportunity to expand on my novel and to bring new threads to the story, exploring hardships and struggles as well as the compassion, humour, and resilience that is so central to the Scottish spirit.”

Shuggie Bain‘s executive producers are A24 and Gaynor Holmes for the BBC. Filming will take place in Scotland.