Downtown Africa
Author Tomi Adeyemi has landed a seven figure book-and-movie deal for her first novel, Children of Blood and Bone, which is being described as a “Black Lives Matter-inspired fantasy novel.”
Fox 2000, which purchased the film rights before the novel was even released, was so impressed by the 23-year-old’s writing style that they have already tagged the project as being as successful as its other YA franchises, Twilight and Maze Runner.
Children of Blood and Bone tells the story of a dark-skinned girl who takes on an empire.
Zélie, the main protagonist in this story, was only a six-year-old Orïsha when she watched the king’s guard hang her mother on a tree outside her home. Never forgetting it, she contained the blessing of god’s magic within her spirit. Over time, their population was cut down as magic became a thing to loathe and having dark skin became a thing to hate. 10 years later, Zélie Adebola has a chance to bring magic back into the world.
Along with her friendship with the Princess Amari, the two come into possession of a sacred scroll which could help restore the connection to the gods and secure magic in the world for another hundred years. Danger lurks in every corner in this West African-inspired world, where beautiful villages are built over oceans and an underbelly of slavery and corruption live around each dark corner. Ms. Adeyemi hopes her book and movie inspire young black girls rather than earn a lot of money.
“I want a little black girl to pick up my book one day and see herself as the star,” she wrote on her blog. “I want her to know that she’s beautiful and she matters and she can have a crazy, magical adventure even if an ignorant part of the world tells her she can never be Hermione Granger.”
Billed as the “next big thing in YA fiction,” Tomi Adeyemi is from San Diego, California, studied English Literature at Harvard University and later moved to Brazil to take a course in West African Mythology and Culture.
As to date, Children of Blood and Bone does not yet have a release date, but we will continue to keep an eye on this as more develops.
Credit: https://medium.com/
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