Nigerian-American actress, comedian, and writer Yvonne Orji has signed a deal with Sony Television to adapt Yaa Gyasi’s novel Transcendent Kingdom for Sony Pictures Television.
Transcendent Kingdom follows Gifty, a sixth-year PhD student in neuroscience raised in a deeply religious family. She explores adjusting behaviors by triggering neurons in the brain through experiments with mice. Gifty’s research is driven by her brother Nana’s death from a heroin overdose when she was 11, which also led to her mother’s deep depression. Gifty lost her faith when her brother died, a struggle she continues to grapple with.
Yaa Gyasi, a Ghanaian-American novelist, gained widespread acclaim with her debut novel Homegoing, published in 2016. At the age of 26, Gyasi received numerous accolades for Homegoing, including the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction, the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” honors for 2016, and the American Book Award. In 2020, Gyasi was also awarded the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature. Her latest work, Transcendent Kingdom, has caught the attention of Sony Television, leading to this exciting adaptation project with Yvonne Orji.
Yvonne Orji, a Nigerian-American Emmy-nominated actress and comedian, is renowned for her role in the television series Insecure, for which she has received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and three NAACP Image Awards. Apart from her acting career, Orji is dedicated to philanthropy and has volunteered in Liberia with Population Services International, an NGO that promotes healthy behaviors through social marketing.
We’re thrilled by this news and eagerly anticipate the TV debut. Congratulations Yaa Gyasi and all fans of Transcendent Kingdom!
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
