The best TV series never made? Script for A Little Life has been ‘rejected by everyone’

Hanya Yanagihara says executives wanted her harrowing bestseller about abuse and suicide given a Sex and the City' makeover

As a global bestseller with rave reviews, set in New York, and with a cult following, A Little Life appears to have all the ingredients for a hit television show. But according to its author, Hanya Yanagihara, scripts for a screen adaptation of the hit novel have been rejected by numerous networks, streaming services and studios, with some network executives even requesting that she make the harrowing story more like Sex and the City".

Yanagihara said she started working on scripts for a 12-part show with three other co-writers four years ago. They created four different scrips for the first four episodes of the series and detailed outlines for a further eight episodes. But after getting a commission from the streaming service Hulu, it was not picked up and, she told the Observer, since then it's been pretty much rejected by everyone".