Award-winning novel 'Five Little Indians' optioned for limited TV series

TORONTO — Michelle Good's award-winning debut novel "Five Little Indians" has been optioned for the small screen.

Toronto-based Prospero Pictures says it has partnered with screenwriter Shannon Masters to secure the rights to adapt the book as a limited series.

Masters, of Cree Métis and Ukrainian descent with past scripts including the 2013 film "Empire of Dirt," is set to be an executive producer, writer and showrunner on the project. Industry veterans Karen Wookey and Martin Katz, president of Prospero Pictures, will also executive produce.

Published by HarperCollins, "Five Little Indians" snagged the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and Amazon Canada First Novel Award in recent weeks.

The book traces the intersecting paths of five residential school survivors working to forge new lives in east Vancouver.

Good, a retired lawyer and member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, drew from her personal and professional connections to residential school survivors to pen the debut in her 60s. It was released in April 2020.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2021.

The Canadian Press

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