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Aziza Barnes, Jeremy O. Harris to Adapt The Vanishing Half for HBO

Photo: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images

Playwrights Aziza Barnes (BLKS) and Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play) have been tapped to write and executive-produce the upcoming HBO series based on Brit Bennett’s best-selling novel, The Vanishing Half. Issa Rae and Stephanie Allain have also signed on as executive producers, along with Bennett. “Reading The Vanishing Half was and is an exacting call to my family’s history — one of passing for white, legends so tall as to be myths, and wounds that last several generations,” Barnes said. “I’m hype.” Harris added that one of the highlights of last year included “the evening I spent on my birthday curled on my couch screaming at Stella Vignes, ‘HOW COULD YOU’ so loudly my neighbor thought something was wrong.” The Vanishing Half follows Desiree and Stella Vignes, identical twin sisters who run away as teenagers from their Louisiana hometown before reuniting years later, having forged wildly different lives and identities. The rights to the best-selling novel were won by HBO last year after a heated auction involving 17 bidders.

Aziza Barnes, Jeremy O. Harris to Adapt The Vanishing Half