Kopano Matlwa’s stunning debut novel, Coconut, is heading for the big screen!

Header image: Kopano (left) and producer Dineo Lusenga (right), courtesy of Pontas

The Pontas Agency announced last month that South African production company KIWI Films has acquired the film rights to Coconut.

Matlwa burst onto the literary scene in 2007 with the publication of Coconut, which became a bestseller and won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the European Union Literary Award. The novel deals with growing up as a black child in a white world. It is the story of black youth who grow up in white neighbourhoods, go to private schools and have white friends.

Matlwa’s second novel, Spilt Milk, was longlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. Her latest novel, Period Pain, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize and longlisted for a Humanities and Social Sciences Award.

Period Pain was published in the United Kingdom as Evening Primrose, and reviewed in the prestigious Times Literary Supplement.

We can’t wait to see Coconut on the big screen!

Read more:

• The Polish cover of Kopano Matlwa’s Period Pain revealed
• ‘Reading set me free’ – Kopano Matlwa chats about writing, success and her new novel Period Pain
• It was a hard book to write: Kopano Matlwa discusses her latest novel, Period Pain

Categories Fiction South Africa

Tags Coconut Film Adaptation Film Rights Jacana Media KIWI Films Kopano Matlwa The Pontas Agency