Hulu has just given a limited-series order to an upcoming adventure series, Washington Black, based on the international best-selling novel from Esi Edugyan, The Root has learned.
Per a press release, the nine-episode series will star This Is Us’ Sterling K. Brown, who has also been tapped to executive produce alongside Selwyn Sefyu Hinds, who will be responsible for adapting the the show.
Washington Black will tell the tale of “an extraordinary 19th-century adventures of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a shocking death threatens to upend his life. Brown will play the gregarious, larger-than-life Medwin Harris, who traveled the world after a traumatic childhood as a Black refugee in Nova Scotia as the de facto mayor of Black Halifax, prioritizes the community over everything except Washington Black, his young protégé. Meeting Wash sends him down a challenging path of self-discovery. And as the barricades around his heart start to fall, Medwin will learn to dream again.”
Speaking of the new show, Brown said, “Washington Black inspires me! This young man and the adventure he undertakes remind me of how the power of imagination and the creativity of artistry can transform the world in which we live. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds has taken the transcendent words of Esi Edugyan and created a spectacular universe that brings to fruition the power of possibility.”
Added Hinds, “The world has felt like we’re living in darkest night, stumbling to find and hold onto a North Star to make a way forward. Like many of us, I’ve felt lost far too often. But writing ‘Washington Black’ these past two years has guided me back home. This story of a young Black boy who becomes a globe-trotting artist, scientist and inventor. This tale of the true human superpowers: hope, love, empathy, persistence. Those ideas have been my North Star.
“The promise that we will get through the long night and take flight like Wash under the light of the sun. This show has been a conduit to that faith for those of us who’ve been creating it, and we’re beyond thrilled to be about the business of sharing it with all of you,” he concluded.
While there’s no word yet on a potential premiere date, when we know—trust, you’ll know, too!