By Hoai-Tran Bui/March 29, 2017 6:30 am EST
An Oprah’s Book Club 2016 selection, New York Times bestseller, and the winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction, The Underground Railroad imagines the famous Underground Railroad as a literal underground subway system, full of engineers, conductors and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. The novel follows Cora, a fugitive slave who makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South, escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad.
Jenkins expressed admiration for Whitehead’s novel in a press release announcing the news:
The series is in development, though a start date hasn’t yet been announced. Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad will be one of two anticipated dramas on the subject, with WGN America’s Underground recently kicking off its explosive second season.
This won’t be be Jenkins’ first TV gig. He recently directed an episode of the upcoming Netflix adaptation of the film Dear White People, and previously directed one episode of the PBS series Futurestates.
Jenkins isn’t be the first director to follow up Oscar buzz by heading to the small screen. Selma director Ava Duvernay found creative and critical success with the OWN TV series Queen Sugar, which she co-created, executive produced and directed. Duvernay has used her time working on Queen Sugar to flex her creative muscles and scope out future projects, last year directing the award-winning documentary 13th, and recently wrapping the Disney adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time.
