Mo Abudu is adapting Wole Soyinka’s “Death and King’s Horseman” into film

Wole Soyinka

Two months ago, CEO of Ebonylife Mo Abudu did a Skype interview with CNN’s Isha Sesay over her studo’s partnership with Sony, a union to bring to life the story of the female warriors of the Dahomey Kingdom. Hammering on telling African stories, Abudu is walking the talk when she announced via her Instagram on Sunday that EbonyLife Films is working on a screen adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s play Death and the King’s Horseman.

The media mogul had posted a picture of herself with the famous playwright in Scott’s, London, where they had lunched together. Soyinka had written the play in Cambridge, where he was a fellow at Churchill College during his political exile from Nigeria.

Premiering at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, New York, in 1975, Death and the King’s Horseman is based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during British colonial rule – the horseman of a Yoruba King was prevented from committing ritual suicide by the colonial authorities. The said horseman is Elesin, who is stopped from ritualistically offering himself by the colonial ruler Simon Pilkings.

EbonyLife Films seem capable of adapting the play for the screens, and although no cast or director has been announced yet, Death and the King’s Horseman sure looks interesting.

 

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