A 24-year-old just scored one the highest book deals in history and netted a seven-figure movie deal.
Tomi Adeyemi said while on "Good Morning America" recently that her Nigerian heritage played a huge role in shaping her debut novel, "The Children of Blood And Bone."
Adeyemi describes the epic fantasy series as "Black Panther but with magic."
When she was teaching in Brazil, Adeyemi started working on the book series and learning to love Nigerian mythology at the same time. She told Robin Roberts of "GMA" that Nigerian myths and legends are an integral part of "The Children of Blood And Bone," which is one book in a trilogy.
The story's protagonist Zélie, a fisherman’s daughter, is sent on a quest to restore magic to her culture. She is confronted by divine forces and teams up with unlikely allies. The story is reminiscent of other entries into the fantasy genre like "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy but this book is based off the real world, too.
Adeyemi told The Guardian, that she was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. In one scene in the beginning of the book, she recreated the video of a police officer pushing a teenage girl to the ground at a pool party in Texas in 2015. She explained that writing the book was therapeutic.
The book is also unapologetically Nigerian. Many places are named after Nigerian cities, characters wear traditional Nigerian fashion and there's a spiritual connection to the country. She said that for all the reasons people like Black Panther, people will love her book.
“That’s why the success of [the recent Marvel movie] Black Panther has been so significant – black and marginalized audiences have the chance to see themselves as heroes depicted in a beautiful and empowering way, and white audiences get to see new stories told, and it becomes easier for them to picture a black superhero," she told The Guardian. "Imagination is a funny thing – we sometimes need to see something before we can truly picture it.”
Without a doubt Adeyemi's parents are proud, in fact, her father read the book 16 times.
Watch Adeyemi and her family celebrate "The Children of Blood and Bone" which is out now.
