Another work by acclaimed Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is set to be adapted to a film. This time it will be a short story from her critically-acclaimed collection “The Thing Around Her Neck”, first published in 2009.
The award-winning Nigerian author agreed to sell the film adaptation rights of “On Monday of Last Week” to Ghanaian director Adoma Akosua Owusu and her Ghanaian-based production company, Obibini Pictures.
“I was compelled to create a new work by adapting literature from contemporary African writers,” Owusu (pictured) says. “The themes of race, liberalism, and sexuality in Adichie’s short story “On Monday of Last Week” resonated with my films on the ‘triple consciousness’ of the African immigrant…”
The short story, which was first published in the literary magazine Granta, explores Kamara, a Nigerian immigrant, who becomes obsessed with the wealthy mother of the boy she babysits.
Two other works of the Nigerian author have been optioned to become movies: 2014’s “Half of a Yellow Sun” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton and Anika Noni Rose; and the Lupita Nyong’o-produced”Americanah”, which has yet to be released.
“On Monday of Last Week” will be the first time one of Adichie’s short stories will be optioned for film.