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Roxane Gay is honored with the Freedom to Write Award during the PEN Center USA’s 25th Annual Literary Awards Festival at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Nov. 16, 2015.
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Black Girl Magic done rained all over this project.
Writer and cultural critic Roxane Gay, author of the 2014 book of essays Bad Feminist, is set to have her debut novel adapted into a movie directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Deadline Hollywood reports. “To … tell a black woman’s story and have it directed by a black woman is a dream come true,” Gay tweeted Tuesday.
Gay published An Untamed State last year, and according to Deadline Hollywood, it “tells the powerful, unflinching story of a Haitian-American woman kidnapped for ransom in front of her husband and child. The novel explores the privilege that made her a target and the strength she must draw on to survive and reclaim her life.” Amazon.com calls Gay a “powerful new literary voice.”
Prince-Bythewood is best-known for directing Love and Basketball and The Secret Life of Bees. Mbatha-Raw most recently starred in Concussion and Belle and teamed up with Prince-Bythewood for Beyond the Lights.
Gay, who has been delightedly telling the Twitterverse how this whole deal came about—first she met with the production company and then she sent the novel to Prince-Bythewood—also tweeted that she trusts the director “entirely.”
I trust the director entirely. She will do an amazing job respecting the story while translating it to a visual medium.
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
So how this all came about. I never thought the book would become a movie. Many people said, “It’s not possible.”
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
One day, this woman named Mindy Schulteis emailed me saying she loved my novel. I flew to LA to meet w/ her and her producing partner.
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
They wanted to do something with the book and I wanted to do something with the book! They said, who is on your dream list of directors.
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
I said @GPBmadeit! And I sent her a copy of the novel! She was super busy and didn’t think she would read it for a while.
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
But then, she read it in a weekend, right away and loved it!
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
And then we went to Fox Searchlight and both executives we met with are WOMEN OF COLOR.
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
And they loved our pitch. And then there was more waiting. So much waiting.
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
And then, the magic happened and a deal was made.
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 22, 2016
Can’t wait for this one.
Read more at Deadline Hollywood.
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