When it comes to drama, leave it to Ramadan to stiffen the competition between producers, directors and TV channels that try to lure the public with popular actors or sumptuous settings.

This year’s ace, however, is literary novels, as producers turn best-sellers such as Bahaa Taher’s award-winning novel “Sunset Oasis” and Ihsan Abd al-Qudus’ “The Sun Will Never Set” into successful soap operas.

Directed by Kamla Abu Zekry, “Sunset Oasis” is about an Egyptian officer named Mahmoud (played by Khaled al-Nabawy) and his wife Catherine (played by Menna Shalaby), who is passionate about archaeology. Suspected of supporting the Urabi Revolt in 1879, Mahmoud is moved to the Siwa Oasis by the British rulers. Besides the dangers of this post, a severe cultural clash surfaces between the locals and Mahmoud. Catherine, an Irish Catholic, also finds herself outcast from society. Her search for the tomb of Alexander the Great in the oasis hardly helps her case, as archaeological excavations are opposed to religion. The novel, which is the basis of the 30-episode series, received the 2008 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, known as the Arab Booker.

“The Sun Will Never Set,” which stars Mervat Amin, Mohamed Mamdouh, Fathy Abdel Wahab and Ahmed Malek, revolves around an Egyptian family saga. Already made into a film by director Salah Abouseif in 1962, the novel’s characters are a widow, two boys and three girls who are confronted with human and social problems in Cairo in the 1960s. However, the soap opera has updated the time to 2017.