THE GROUNDBREAKING NOVEL The Book of Negroes is heading to the big screen after Toronto filmmaker Clement Virgo optioned the film rights.
 

“It speaks to the black diasporic experience,” said Virgo, who grew up in the Eglinton West area of the city and attended West Prep in Forest Hill.
The book, set in the 18th century, follows a girl named Aminata Diallo, taken from West Africa to live as a slave in South Carolina. Hill, who grew up in Don Mills, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for the book.
 

Hailing from Jamaica, Virgo explained that being born in a British colonial society helped him identify with the main character because his own ancestors were taken from Africa to be slaves. Virgo’s latest film is Poor Boy’s Game, starring Danny Glover. He also works in television, most recently as a director on the NBC/CTV series The Listener. He said he wants to film The Book of Negroes in Nova Scotia and the U.K.
 

The film will be produced by Virgo and Damon D’Oliveira, his partner in the production company Conquering Lion Pictures.