Fresh off the announcement that she’ll be joining the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII, Lupita Nyong’o has agreed to a deal to produce and star in Americanah, the film adaptation of a novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Nyong’o will be teaming up with D2 Productions, Potboiler Productions, and Brad Pitt's Plan B to develop the award-winning book into a movie. In a statement, she said:
“It is such an honor to have the opportunity to bring Ms. Adichie's brilliant book to the screen. Page after page I was struck by Ifemelu and Obinze's stories, whose experiences as African immigrants are so specific and also so imminently relatable. It is a thrilling challenge to tell a truly international story so full of love, humor and heart.”
The book follows the story of young Nigerians Ifemelu and Obinze, whose love story features innumerable bumps in the road and is complicated by the couple’s experience as immigrants. It won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and also was named to the “Ten Best Books of the Year” list by the New York Times Book Review.
No timeline has been established for the film, but given the clout behind it, we can expect to see Americanah sooner rather than later.
[via The Wrap]
