Shekhar Kapur’s new series, My Name Is Memory, to centre on reincarnation, eternal love
Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur announced on Monday (April 20) that he has signed on to adapt, direct and produce a major global series based on Ann Brashares’ 2010 novel My Name Is Memory for Amazon Prime Video. The project, backed by Amazon MGM Studios in the United States, marks Kapur’s return to longform storytelling after years focused primarily on feature films.
Kapur, who broke the news on X, described the story as “an exciting mysterious, heartbreaking and ultimately heartwarming adventure that takes the audience through wars, conflict and empires and even into the future. It reinforces the idea that ‘Love is Forever.’”
The series will centre on Daniel, a man who can recall all his past lives in vivid detail, and his centuries-long search for his soulmate Sophia. Reborn in each new life without any memory of their shared history, Sophia must be found and reawakened by Daniel across vastly different eras, geographies, wars and empires.
The narrative begins in the contemporary United States before careening through continents and dynasties, bringing romance, mystery and supernatural elements into a sweeping epic designed for the expansive canvas of a high-profile streaming series.
Suited to Kapur’s directorial signature
Brashares’ novel, published in June 2010 by Riverhead Books, runs into 324 pages and was marketed as the first in a planned trilogy, though only the initial volume appeared. It follows Daniel’s reincarnations dating back to 520 A.D. near Antioch, where a traumatic event in a raid on a North African village sets in motion a haunting cycle of guilt, love and pursuit. In the present day, the story shifts to high-school senior Lucy in Virginia — Sophia’s latest incarnation — who remains unaware of her connection to Daniel until their paths cross once more.
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A mysterious antagonistic force, tied to Daniel’s past, repeatedly threatens to tear them apart. The book has an inventive premise of selective reincarnation memory, its cross-historical scope and its exploration of soul-deep love that endures beyond death. It built on Brashares’ established reputation as the New York Times-bestselling author of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, which had already been adapted into two successful feature films in 2005 and 2008.
The choice of My Name Is Memory for a premium global series feels particularly suited to Kapur’s directorial signature. Born in Lahore in 1944 and raised in India, Kapur began his professional life as a chartered accountant in London before switching to acting and then directing. His early Indian films — Masoom (1983), Mr. India (1987) and the groundbreaking Bandit Queen (1994) — established him as a bold storyteller. Bandit Queen, a biographical drama about the dacoit Phoolan Devi, earned international acclaim and a National Film Award, catapulting Kapur onto the global stage.
Love that outlasts wars
In Hollywood, he directed the Oscar-nominated Elizabeth (1998), starring Cate Blanchett as the Virgin Queen, a lavish historical epic that captured the political intrigue, religious conflict and imperial ambition of Tudor England. Its sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), extended that canvas further. Kapur also helmed The Four Feathers (2002), an adventure set against the backdrop of 19th-century British colonialism in Sudan. More recently, he directed the British romantic comedy What’s Love Got to Do with It? (2022) and is currently developing Masoom: The Next Generation, a sequel to his debut feature.
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Kapur’s dual fluency in Indian and Western cinema makes him an ideal steward for a project explicitly designed as a “tentpole global series.” Amazon’s decision to greenlight the adaptation under its US Studios banner shows the platform’s ongoing strategy of investing in prestigious literary IP with built-in international appeal. Brashares’ track record with the Sisterhood franchise, beloved by millions for its themes of female friendship and personal growth, adds commercial pedigree, even as My Name Is Memory ventures into more adult territory of reincarnation, fate and eternal romance.
The novel itself has a modest but dedicated following. Published to generally positive reviews, it was optioned for film by New Regency as early as November 2009, though that project never materialised. If you have read it, you know how it shows the ache of loving someone who cannot remember you, the burden of carrying centuries of memory alone, and the redemptive power of recognition across lifetimes. For fans of Brashares’ earlier work, for admirers of Kapur’s historical dramas, and for anyone drawn to tales of souls that find each other again and again, My Name Is Memory promises to be, in the director’s own framing, an adventure that reaffirms love’s ability to outlast empires, wars and even death itself.
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