Author Barry Unsworth’s Booker Prize-winner novel Sacred Hunger will be adapted into a series.
According to Deadline, Plan B and Marshall executive producer Chris Bongirne and his production company Smokestack Films has joined hands with financier Stephen Leist to buy the rights to the 1992 book.
The story follows the journey of a struggling young English doctor aboard 18th century slave ship the Liverpool Merchant.
In 1992, Sacred Hunger shared the Booker Prize with Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.
“We’re honoured to have the opportunity to adapt Unsworth’s poignant work for the screen. The deeply powerful story dives deep into England’s early slave trade to reveal a tale of shared humanity as stunningly relevant today as it was bitingly critical at the time. "Television is the perfect medium for the brutal relevance, scope and sweep of this timely story,” Bongirne said.