Five recommendations of series based on books

Audiovisual seems to have lost some of its ability to generate new stories, but instead has a good eye for spotting books that can work on screen. Faced with the large volume of offers currently available on the platforms, we choose five proposals for screen literati.

One of the latest adaptations to hit the platforms is this new version of How to water for chocolatea novel by Laura Esquivel that already knows what audiovisual success is thanks to the film Alfonso Arau made of it in 1992. Magical realism, an impossible love and food as an element of seduction, these three characteristics are they maintain in the new production, driven by Salma Hayek, who serves as producer of a series that puts all the meat on the grill in terms of setting. Set in Revolutionary Mexico, fiction also adapts Tita’s diariesthe continuation of Like water for chocolatewhich Esquivel will publish in 2016.

One of the crown jewels of AppleTV+ is this family saga, based on the novel by Korean-American Min Jin Lee, whose works often deal with the Korean diaspora, a theme she knows firsthand as daughter of immigrants settled in the United States. A Pachinko immigration plays a central role: in the first season, viewers watch as young Sunja leaves her native Korea to settle in Japan to start from scratch after becoming pregnant by a married man. The television adaptation chooses to bring together the different timelines, establishing parallels between Sunja and her grandson, already born in Japan but who does not feel Japanese at all. As in Like water for chocolatefood is one of the great communication vehicles of all the characters, an emotional bond with the land of origin of all of them. Despite being one of the higher quality AppleTV+ productions, being a series almost entirely in Korean and Japanese means it has trouble reaching a wide audience.

Javier Giner, who has been working in the world of cinema for years as a press officer, opened up in his autobiographical book I, addict (Paidós), in which he related in detail his process of detoxification from cocaine, alcohol and sex. That honesty exercise was published in 2021 and three years later the television version arrived, with Oriol Pla as alter ego by Giner. I, addict is structured as a six-episode miniseries that wants to give hope to people who are going through similar situations. “If I didn’t have a hopeful conception of humanity I wouldn’t have made this series,” said Giner during the presentation of the fiction in Barcelona.

Readers of Elena Ferrante know well that entering her universe can be a fascinating and addictive experience. The tetralogy of The cool friendpublished by La Campana in Catalan, explains the strange relationship of dependence between two friends, Lila and Lenù, born in a poor neighborhood of Naples. Despite sharing origins, they end up having very different life trajectories. This September, Max premiered the final season of the series, which adapts the fourth novel in the saga, The lost girl. The celebrity of Ferrante’s novel was reinforced this year when the New York Times he chose The cool friend as the best book of the 21st century according to the vote of 500 experts.

Lately, one of the great sources of inspiration and business for television series is the romance or romance novels, so far neglected. It falls into this category Rivalsone of Disney+’s newest additions. This comedy with the tone of a pamphlet and copious amounts of sex is based on one of the eleven novels that make up the saga Ruthsire Chroniclesby the British Jilly Cooper. A series that must be understood as entertainment and that takes us back to the 80s and the world of televised rivalries.