If we've learnt anything from Sally Rooney's Normal People, it's that sometimes the best-selling novels we fall in love on paper can become equally as magical when brought to life on screen.
Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, which has spent the last six weeks (and counting) on the New York Times best-seller list since its June 2 publication, is officially being given the TV treatment, with Deadline reporting that HBO won a "wild auction" amid 17 bidders for rights to the story.
Below, everything we know about the highly-anticipated series.
What Is The Vanishing Half About?
The novel tells the story of Desiree and Stella Vignes, identical twin sisters who grew up in the Jim Crow South before escaping at age 16 and diverging on separate life paths. A further description of the novel, per Hachette Australia, reads:
"The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?"
Who Will Be Behind The Upcoming Project?
No cast or producers have been announced outside of Bennett, who will executive produce. There's also been no word on an official release date.
This isn't the first time one of Bennett's novels will be taken to the screen either, with her debut novel Mothers also being picked up in 2017. The book centres on three young adults in the congressional of a Black church in Southern California.
It was reported that Bennett would write the screenplay and executive produce, as well as actress Kerry Washington on board to play its titular character.
