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Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o is to star in and produce a film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah (Fourth Estate).
According to a Deadline report, Nyong’o will produce the film with D2 Productions, Plan B and Potboiler Productions.
Americanah tells the story of two young Nigerians, Ifemelu and Obinze, who fall in love but are separated when they flee the country’s military dictatorship. It has sold 55,140 copies through Nielsen BookScan since its publication in May last year, and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Nyong’o said it was an “honour” to bring Adichie’s book to the screen. She commented: “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.”
Nyong’o rose to international acclaim in her role as Patsey in "12 Years a Slave", for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. It was recently announced that she will star in "Star Wars: Episode VII".
This is the second time one of Adichie’s novels has been turned into a film. Her Orange Prize-winning 2007 novel Half of a Yellow Sun (Fourth Estate) was adapted into a film with Nyongo’s "12 Years" co-star Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton, which was also produced by Andrea Calderwood of Potboiler Production and released earlier this year.