The Book of Negroes makes TV debut Wednesday on CBC TV
The highly-anticipated series starts airing across Canada
The Book of Negroes, a television adaptation of Lawrence Hill's book, makes its television premiere on CBC on Jan. 7.
The internationally co-produced, six-part miniseries follows the story of an African woman named Aminata Diallo, played by Aunjanue Ellis, who is kidnapped from Africa and sold into slavery in the southern U.S.
Stars from the six-part miniseries include Academy Award-winning actors Lou Gossett Jr. and Cuba Gooding Jr.
"Slavery is very much involved in this lady's life," Gossett told CBC News before November's North American premiere in Toronto at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox. "But it's really a triumphant story about this woman who can tell the story. In that way, it's better than Roots, and 12 Years a Slave because it's a portrait."
Gossett talks more about the miniseries in the video above.
Hill's 2007 novel was named after the actual historical document which recorded the names and descriptions of thousands of Loyalist slaves who were granted their freedom and sent to Nova Scotia.
"[It] was one of those moments in my career where I just shook my head and [said] 'what was I doing in school? What was the curriculum that we didn't learn anything about African American history?''
Not only was he intrigued by the project, he couldn't put the script down.
"[The producers] send you all six episodes, and you read one or two and then you give them an answer—I couldn't stop and read all six," said Gooding, who plays Sam Fraunces, a freed slave from Jamaica who runs a tavern in New York.
The 2007 novel, which was published in some countries under the title Someone Knows My Name, earned widespread praise.
It sold nearly a million copies worldwide and also won a host of honours, including the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best overall book and the 2009 edition of CBC's Canada Reads. It was also set to music by the Nathaniel Dett Chorale in 2012.