Bitter Eden (Arcadia 2010 edition)
Love in the Time of War
I have fallen in love with many books, but for the most part I’m pretty content to leave them in their perfect novel form, or watch someone else’s eventual celluloid take on them. Not in the case of these two stories though – even before I’d finished them, my head was full of how they had to be made into films, and it was going to be my mission to make sure this happens.
For Bitter Eden – cupid got me about seven years ago. Since then, I have been admiring it from afar, and occasionally making tentative but insubstantial forays in secret. But at the start of this year I decided it was enough pussy-footing and launched a full on chase, much to the bemusement of the publishers. Fortunately, they saw that beneath my fumbling, and halting words of admiration, there was a solid understanding and commitment to the storytelling, and they signed me the option.
So, that is all about my mistress Bitter Eden. In the case of my wife, the novel – Half of a Yellow Sun, I threw caution to the wind pretty much straight away. I wooed without restraint sending emails, letters, photos, even cupcakes, but for much of the year, it appeared all I would meet was a solid wall of disinterest.
Almost in despair, I resigned myself to unrequited passion, but then I suddenly remembered my secret – my mother. My whole family is pretty amazing, but my mother is particularly so (she Produced Rag Tag) and she was no exception in this case. Several chats with her later and I was a on a fresh course, which has just led to my working on the Half of a Yellow Sun pilot shoot. The film is being put together by its publisher and the producers of Last King of Scotland and The Constant Gardener – some of the most significant films set in the Africa in recent decades. When the pilot and our other efforts generate sufficient interest, we’ll be ready to go.
