John Elmes/ C21 Media
Canadian prodco Thunderbird Entertainment has acquired the television rights to futuristic young-adult novel The Marrow Thieves.
Written by Métis Cherie Dimaline, the novel follows an Indigenous teenager and his friends as they struggle to survive in a world where the Indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow.
Thunderbird Entertainment will now adapt the work as a limited series for television.
The book, published by Cormorant Books-owned Dancing Cat Books, won The Canada Council for the Arts’ Governor General’s Literary Award for Young People’s Literature – Text and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers last year.
Alex Raffé, Thunderbird Entertainment’s senior VP of scripted production, brokered the deal with Linda Saint, founder of literary representation firm The Saint Agency.
“Because The Marrow Thieves has become an important work for the Indigenous community, it was essential to find a team who could bring this story to life with a commitment to honour its messages and worldview,” said Dimaline. “Thunderbird has made such a commitment.”