The Book of Negroes

Lawrence Hill's award-winning novel is a major television miniseries airing on BET Networks.

The Book of Negroes (based on the novel Someone Knows My Name) will be BET's first miniseries. The star-studded production includes lead actress Aunjanue Ellis ( Ray, The Help), Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. ( Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men), Oscar and Emmy winner Louis Gossett Jr. ( A Raisin in the Sun, Boardwalk Empire), and features Lyriq Bent ( Rookie Blue), Jane Alexander ( The Cider House Rules), and Ben Chaplin ( The Thin Red Line). Director and co-writer Clement Virgo is a feature film and television director ( The Wire) who also serves as producer with executive producer Damon D'Oliveira ( What We Have).

In this "transporting" ( Entertainment Weekly) and "heart-stopping" ( Washington Post) work, Aminata Diallo, one of the strongest women characters in contemporary fiction, is kidnapped from Africa as a child and sold as a slave in South Carolina. Fleeing to Canada after the Revolutionary War, she escapes to attempt a new life in freedom.