Cover art by Greg Ruth

Hulu has ordered an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Binti trilogy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Okorafor will pen the pilot episode along with Stacy Osei-Kuffour, who wrote for HBO’s Watchmen and Hulu’s PEN15.

Okorafor first published Binti in 2015 through Tor.com Publishing. The novella follows a young Himba woman who is accepted into an interstellar university, Oomza Uni. While traveling to the university, her ship is attacked by a jellyfish-like alien called the Meduse, and Binti is forced to try and broker a truce with them in order to survive.

Finally, I can be public about it! We are adapting Binti into a TV series at @hulu. I’m co-writing the pilot with @StacyAmma (HBO's Watchmen). #Africanfuturism #Binti 🌍🚀 https://t.co/B4Bb3AGvwD — Nnedi Okorafor, PhD (@Nnedi) January 14, 2020

Binti earned considerable acclaim after its release, earning Okorafor the 2016 Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella, as well as the British Fantasy and Locus awards. In 2017, she published a sequel, Binti: Home, and in 2018, Binti: The Night Masquerade, which won the 2019 Hugo for Best Novella. Okorafor has since published an omnibus edition that includes all three novellas, as well as a new story, Binti: Sacred Fire.

Media Res, the production company launched by HBO executive Michael Ellenberg, optioned the title. The book is the latest of Okorafor’s that’s set to be adapted for television: she’s working with HBO to develop a series based on her novel Who Fears Death. She’s also writing the script for a series based on Octavia Butler’s novel Wild Seed for Amazon Prime Video.