The television adaptation of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan’s epic Booker Prize-winning war novel, debuted on Amazon Prime Video on April 18. As befits the cultural importance of the book to Australians, the series stars arguably the country’s buzziest male actor Jacob Elordi and is also helmed by one of its most important filmmakers Justin Kurzel. But Narrow Road‘s decade-long journey to the screen has been a long and arduous one.

Published in 2013, Flanagan’s WWII-set book follows Dorrigo Evans, an Australian surgeon haunted by a wartime love affair and his brutal experiences as a Pow forced to build the Thai-Burma Death Railway under Imperial Japanese command. The novel shifts between Dorrigo’s youth, including a summer affair with his uncle’s young wife, the horrors of his captivity, and his later, unfulfilled life, exploring memory, trauma, and the fragility of human dignity.

Flanagan...