Isak Dinesen’s memoir Out of Africa (PRH/Modern Library; BOT; OverDrive Sample), made famous on the big screen by Sydney Pollack’s 1995 multiple Oscar-winning film starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, is in development, reports Deadline, as a TV series.

Some big names are involved. Producer David Heyman (Harry Potter, Gravity) is working on the adaptation for NBCUniversal with Emmy winning director Susanne Bier (The Night Manager).

Dinesen’s classic memoir, written under the pseudonym Karen Blixen [Correction: As pointed out in the comments, it’s the other way around. Dinesen was the pseudonym], recounts her years living on a farm in Kenya during the twilight of the British Empire. Heyman says “the long form series offers us the chance to explore not only Karen’s world, but also the perspective of the Kenyans she encounters.”

Time magazine listed the book at #62 on their list of 100 best and most influential works of nonfiction written since 1923, saying:

“Her memoir depicts the close relationships she fostered among the men who worked for her, giving African characters a complexity and dignity not found in other colonial texts. The occasional brutality and profound loss that characterize colonial life do not overshadow the serenity with which Blixen-Finecke writes, fostering wanderlust in anyone who reads her book.”

It’s part of a trend of adapting popular films  to TV, notes The Hollywood Reporter. Recent examples include “redos of Lethal Weapon, The Exorcist, Training Day and Taken.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2017 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Books & TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.