Yvonne Orji developing Yaa Gyasi novel for television

“Transcendent Kingdom” tells the story of a Ghanaian-American woman making “a methodical and a spiritual journey” through suffering.

Yvonne Orji’s next project is on the way. The actress and comedian is developing the Yaa Gyasi novel “Transcendent Kingdom” under her first-look deal with Sony Pictures Television.

As Deadline reports, the novel by Gyasi follows Gifty, “a neuroscientist in training studying the behavior patterns in mice as it relates to depression and addiction.” The novel switches back and forth between her upbringing as a first-generation Ghanaian in rural Alabama and her present life in the Bay Area, as she embarks on “a methodical and a spiritual journey to make sense of the suffering” she has witnessed.

“Even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family’s loss,” the synopsis concludes, she’s yearning for “facets of her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.”

Orji, best known for portraying Molly in Issa Rae’s hit series “Insecure,” is an Emmy-nominated actress, comedian and producer. Outside of “Insecure,” she has brought multiple comedy specials to HBO and has starred in films such as “The Blackening” and “Vacation Friends” and its sequel, “Vacation Friends 2.”

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Orji signed her first-look deal with Sony Pictures Television last year, which will see her developing scripted drama and comedy series for cable and streaming. “I’m so excited to be partnering with Sony,” Orji said in a statement obtained by Deadline at the time. “From the first meeting with Katherine Pope and the rest of her amazing executive team, I knew this was the right home for me. They got my vision immediately and were genuinely enthusiastic about the stories I wanted to tell that bridge the diaspora.”

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