Around this time last year, I was lucky enough to attend a Society of Authors talk given by the novelist Naomi Alderman.
Several of her works have been adapted for the screen.
Currently streaming, The Power, is set in a world where women suddenly develop the ability to emit a powerful electric charge.
I loved this book and had a question about a cryptic comment I had spotted in the acknowledgments.
Thanks…to Margaret Atwood, who believed in this book when it was barely a glimmer, and told me when I faltered that it was still definitely alive.
Naomi Alderman in the acknowledgments to The Power (2016)
What lay behind her massive debt of gratitude to Margaret Atwood, one of the greatest living sci-fi legends?
Pictured left to right: The cover of Naomi Alderman’s The Power, and me [dystopian author N. A. (Nicola) Rossi] cunningly trying to associate myself with a fake Handmaid promoting Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and its sequel The Testaments.
Dystopian divas R Us!
How had Atwood taken such a close interest in helping her?
It turned out that they had met through the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. They had formed a close relationship, spending quality time together and getting to know each other well.
I dream that Atwood might one day recognize my work and her (rather more arms-length) influence on it.
Of course, Atwood had to wait more than four decades for a globally successful screen adaptation of her 1985 dystopian classic, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Alderman, on the other hand, has seen The Power make it to Amazon Video in just six years. Quite a feat, especially with a pandemic in the middle of it all.
The production team have done the most amazing job of adapting the novel. In fact, I would say I am enjoying it even more than the book.
Bonus content includes interviews with Alderman and the production team on their ‘book to screen’ process.
Being at the early stages of this with my own work, it was a welcome insight into how they made key editorial decisions and developed new characters.
New episodes of The Power are being released weekly in the UK. Do have a look at the amazing trailer and see if you fancy it yourself.
It gets an ‘outstanding’ from me.
