Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi’s 2020 book Transcendent Kingdom has been optioned for TV by Sony Pictures Television with none other than Yvonne Orji as the producer. We love when African creatives collaborate on a project as important as this one!

Yvonne Orji is a Nigerian-American actress and comedian. She is best known for her role in the TV series Insecure (2016–2021), for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and three NAACP Image Awards. Last year, Orji signed a two-year, first-look deal with Sony Pictures Television, under which she will develop scripted drama and comedy series for streaming and cable.

The Transcendent Series is one of Orji’s ventures within this deal, according to Deadline. Orji remarked on her Instagram that she is excited to bring the book to life:

AFRICA TO THE WORLD!!! Been chasing this story for 4 solid years and will continue to ride hard for it ‘til it’s on your television screens WORLD WIDE!! You can BANK ON IT!
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Shout out to @sptv for believing in the vision from JUMP (no hesitation!) and much love to #yaagyasi for trusting me with one of her babies. Naija and Ghana Jollof CAN be united for the greater good. Look at Gaawd!
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And to execs and networks— please don’t sleep on African stories. They are worthy to be told. They are worthy to be INVESTED in. And there IS a GLOBAL audience for them. BANK ON US!

Transcendent Kingdom is the story of a Ghanaian immigrant family ravaged by depression and addiction, and battling the line between faith and science. Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford, studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother Nana was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him addicted to OxyContin. Meanwhile, her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But she finds herself turning toward her childhood faith and the evangelical church.

Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian-American novelist. Her debut novel Homegoing (2016) won her 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. She was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature in 2020.

Congrats to Gyasi and Orji on the upcoming TV show!