Vikram Seth has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 8 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 22 ratings. The most-rated is A Suitable Boy (Dramatised).
A Suitable Boy (Dramatised)
Summary
The award-winning BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Vikram Seth's masterpiece.
Shortlisted for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, 1993.
Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1994.
Winner of the WH Smith Literary Award, 1994.
A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century.
The story unfolds through four middle class families - the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with. There are standards to be met and finding a husband for Lata becomes a family affair in which all the members are to play a part. The characters struggle, they try to buck the system, to break free of restraint, of interference - but ultimately their strength and sense of being comes from their family and friends. It is a celebration of ordinariness; a beautifully composed story that is an affirmation of family and friendship.
In his sweeping epic, Vikram Seth has created an entire world filled with warmth, humour, pathos, tragedy - in short, life. Recorded on location in India, A Suitable Boy is made by the production team behind the award-winning Bleak House and The Handmaid's Tale.
2018 will be the 25th anniversary of the first publication of this classic story.
Dramatised and directed by John Dryden. A Goldhawk Production.
©2002, 2003 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2002, 2003 BBC Worldwide Ltd
An Equal Music
Summary
Michael is a violinist from Rochdale. He plays in a trio in Vienna with Julia, a pianist, and they are much taken with each other. But the trio splits up and they go their separate ways. One day in London, from the top of a double-decker bus, Michael catches a glimpse of Julia. They eventually meet up, and she tells him that she is contentedly married and has a child. Michael persuades her to visit Vienna and Venice with him. He discovers that Julia has become deaf, though her deafness comes and goes. When Michael reads a letter from Julia to her husband, he realises that Julia is never going to give herself to him.
©2005 Vikram Seth (P)2011 Orion Publishing Group Limited
The Golden Gate
Summary
A BBC Radio 3 dramatisation of Vikram Seth's verse novel about the lives and loves of a group of 20-somethings in 1980s San Francisco. Award-winning Novelist Vikram Seth is renowned worldwide for his magnum opus A Suitable Boy. But his dazzling debut, though less well-known, is equally innovative, masterly and ambitious. First published in 1986 and inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, it is written entirely in verse, comprising almost 600 stanzas of rhyming sonnets. This epic poem focusses on the interconnected stories of five young professionals, as they make their way in the 'unfettered city' of San Francisco in the '80s. There's lonely computer engineer John, his sculptor ex-girlfriend Jan, a drummer in a heavy-metal band, his best friend Phil, a divorced dad who's turned his back on Silicon Valley to become a peacenik, lawyer Liz, devoted to her cranky, elderly cat Charlemagne and Ed, Liz's brother, a fervent Christian torn between his faith and his homosexuality. We follow them from coffee shops to concerts, parties to peace protests, Sonoma Valley wineries to singles bars as they forge (and break) friendships, flirt, date, start relationships, split up and try again with someone new. Their search for romance, fulfilment and self-realisation - for 'someone who will do for love, and who may love us too' - will bring them happiness, heartbreak, joy and pain.... Not merely a portrait of youthful love and loss, but also of a time and a place - San Francisco at its zenith, before gentrification and the tech giants took over - Seth's delightful verse narrative is by turns funny, playful, lyrical and profound. This BBC Radio 3 adaptation, first broadcast in 1999, stars Mark Leake as John, with Barbara Barnes as Liz, Laurel Lefkow as Jan and Michael Neil as Phil. Production credits: Written by Vikram Seth. Produced by Ekene Akalawu. Cast: John - Mark Leake Liz - Barbara Barnes Jan - Laurel Lefkow Phil - Michael Neil First broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 7th - 11th June 1999.
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