Fans of the late Octavia Butler are rejoicing after news has emerged that Butler’s book Dawn is being made into a television series.
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According to Deadline, Allen Bain, a producer and professor at Columbia University, has optioned the rights for Dawn under his new company, Bainframe.
If you’re not familiar with Butler’s book, which was published in 1987, Dawn is part 1 of a sci-fi trilogy that initially was called Xenogenesis but is now referred to as Lilith’s Brood. In Dawn, Lilith, a black woman, is one of humanity’s last survivors who were saved by an ancient alien race just before the apocalypse. The survivors are given one of two choices: mate with the aliens to create a new species or die as humans.
In an interview with Shadow and Act, Bain said he plans to stay true to the book’s roots because of the strong African-American female character.
“That’s hugely important to me, and I also want to stay true to Octavia Butler’s text. I don’t want to muddle it in any way. The lead of this book is an African-American female and the lead of the TV show should be the same. And I think it’s important to bring together a team behind the scenes that represents the multicultural aspects of the book, because that’s what the book is about,” Bain said.
Butler died in 2006, but her work continues to receive praise, not only because of her contribution to sci-fi literature but also because she was one of the few black women who wrote in the genre. Butler was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010.
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