Little Island Productions has acquired the television rights to T.C. Farren’s THE BOOK OF MALACHI from Louisa Minghella at Blake Friedmann.
The story follows Malachi, a mute thirty-year-old man who receives an extraordinary job offer. In exchange for six months as a warden on a top-secret organ-farming project, Raizier Pharmaceuticals will graft him a new tongue. Malachi finds himself on an oil rig among warlords and mass murderers. But do the prisoner-donors deserve their fate?
Little Island Productions was founded by producer Helen Flint (Patrick Melrose, Summer of Rockets) in 2013, and specialises in high-end scripted drama for domestic and international markets. It is currently in production on big-canvas fantasy adventure series The Wheel Of Time, which is co-produced with Sony for Amazon.
Producer Suzan Harrison (The Dresser) is Little Island’s Head of Development, and the Development Executive is Bryony Cunningham (Patrick Melrose).
Suzan Harrison said: ‘THE BOOK OF MALACHI’ is an intense and beautifully written story that explores themes of race, disability, and sexuality. T.C Farren has created an extraordinary world, and we’re thrilled to bring it to the screen.’
T.C. Farren said: ‘People who read the book often say they’ve just watched a movie. I felt the same way writing it. It is wonderful that Little Island Productions are going to make this materialise’.
THE BOOK OF MALACHI was published in the UK in October 2020 by Titan Books, and in South Africa in 2019 by Kwela, while the audio edition is available from Bolinda. Titan will also release THE BOOK OF MALACHI in the US on 10th November. The novel was nominated for the Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction 2020.
About T.C. Farren
T.C. Farren is a prize-winning novelist and scriptwriter, based in Cape Town. Her first novel, WHIPLASH won both humanitarian and literary awards. Her screenplay adaptation gave rise to the feature film, TESS, which won numerous awards, including a prestigious screenwriting nomination. She also adapted her highly acclaimed second novel, SNAKE to a screenplay which has won production funding and is due to be produced soon. HOTEL NOWHERE, T.C. Farren’s drug trafficking thriller script has recently been selected for development.
Praise for THE BOOK OF MALACHI
‘Farren has created an extraordinary narrator in Malachi... An intense and memorable read.’ – SFX
‘Grace and hope elevate THE BOOK OF MALACHI from the foundations of its sci-fi action thriller narrative. The questions Farren asks about who controls our ideas about forgiveness, who deserves it and why, could stay with you for a long time.’ – New Scientist
‘Farren is an exceptional writer, one of the best I’ve encountered, and not just in this country. By the time the novel ended, I was bereft, missing the characters and the setting as if I’d spent real time in an actual place. I can’t recommend this powerful novel highly enough.’ — Janet van Eeden Harrison, LitNet
‘Her descriptive powers are faultless, but more than that her understanding and exposition of what it is to be human, even in a broken form is magical… Sheer genius … Utterly brilliant.’ — Jennifer Crocker, Cape Times
‘Will have you ripping through the pages. Part thriller, part horror, part speculative fiction: this gripping read goes to the heart of ethical quandaries, forcing the reader to ask: “What if it were me?”’ — Sunday Times (SA)
‘An extraordinary, moving story that I read sometimes through the gaps in my fingers, like peeking at a horror movie — but one with hope and some exquisite visuals.’ — Country Life