Toni Morrison's "Sula" set to become limited series at HBO
If we were to award a streaming service with the “Class Brains” and “Most Likely to Succeed” superlatives, it would probably be HBO taking the crowns. Though their user interface leaves much to be desired (programming great, rewinding not so much.) Their most recent announcement has voracious readers and fans of Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison excited.
HBO recently shared that they’re developing a limited series based on Morrison’s 1973 novel Sula. Sula is a story about two Black girls, sister-like companions that grow into two women. Nel Wright wants marriage, children and to become a pillar of their small town of Medallion, Ohio. Sula Peace wants to be a worldly, as our churchy grandma would say, city woman, rejecting the small town and traditionality of Nel’s life. Nel becomes a pillar of the community and Sula becomes its shame. The story allows us to glimpse into the lives of this Black community and these two women as their paths diverge and then cross again. It’s a story that stands the test of time, as relevant in 2022 as it was in1973 and a storytelling format most recently embraced by other Black writers like Jaqueline Woodson with Red At The Bone, Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, to name a few.
The series comes from writer Shannon M. Houston, known for contributing to projects like Amazon Prime’s Homecoming, Hulu’s Little Fire’s Everywhere, HBO’s Lovecraft Country, and Station Eleven. Safe hands for a Morrison project to be in. It will be executive produced alongside Houston, Stephanie Allain, the founder of Homegrown Pictures production company that is dedicated to creating content by and about women and people of color. It is also known for illustrious projects such as Hustle & Flow (2005), Dear White People Film (2014) and the Netflix series (2017-2021), Beyond the Lights (2014) and Netflix’s Burning Sands (2017.)
It’s safe to say this project has the right people in the right places.