Ghanaian-Nigerian writer Taiye Selasi has branched out from novel writing to writing her very own TV series. Titled Victoria Island, the comedy drama series is set in Lagos and follows the adventures of a Nigerian-American woman.
According to Deadline, the hour-long project follows a Nigerian-American woman who returns to Lagos, newly married to an oil billionaire. In Lagos, she launches an event planning company with the help of her friends and the series features some of these exciting events.
Selasi will write and executively produce the series through her production company Cocoa Content, which she founded in 2019 with media investor Jerôme Levy. Victoria Island will also be executively produced by Nicholas Weinstock, and produced by Fremantle and African producer Known Associates Entertainment, led by Tshepiso Chikapa Phiri.
Selasi announced the news on Instagram, overjoyed at finally achieving her dream of working in Film/TV:
When I was a little girl, my stepdad @wilburnwilliams used to take me to the movies, where, when the studio theme song played, I’d sing along. (Still do.) I always dreamed of working in film/tv — but never dared express it. Those dreams, I thought, were for kids with trust funds, family connections and/or the luxury of unpaid internships. Not for firstborn African immigrant daughters trying to repay school loans. I was wrong.
.
.
There’s a trick, I think, to dreaming. You’ve got to see it done, as it’s said. To sing the music, each and every time imagining that it’s your movie. There’s that. But there are also your dream-champions. Your village. Your tear-driers. Your fear extinguishers. Your angels. If you are yearning in your soul to do something wild, big, new, true — you don’t need all the connections. You need all the connectedness.
.
.
VICTORIA ISLAND is just the first of six series we’ve got in store. And it’s #naijafire A party an episode. Literally. The music! The clothes! The actors! The writers! But none of it would be possible without my dream team. I love you more than I can say.
Mentored by the brilliant Toni Morrison, Selasi is best known for her novel Ghana Must Go (2013), her children’s book Anansi and the Golden Pot (2022), and her TED Talk “Don’t Ask Where I’m From, Ask Where I’m a Local”. In 2013, Selasi was selected as one of Granta′s 20 Best Young British Writers and in 2014 named to the Hay Festival’s Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers under the age of 40 “with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature.”
Congrats to Selasi! We cannot wait to watch the TV series soon.
COMMENTS -
Reader Interactions