‘The Underground Railroad’: Everything You Need to Know About Barry Jenkins’ Amazon Series

The years-long wait for “The Underground Railroad,” the first television series from acclaimed filmmaker Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) isn’t quite over, but new details are beginning to emerge about the highly-anticipated project.“The Underground Railroad,” which is set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video, is an adaptation of Colin Whitehead’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.

Whitehead’s novel took place in an alternate history where the 19th century Underground Railroad was a literal railroad that American slaves used to flee the South and find freedom.Amazon’s synopsis for Jenkins’ adaptation reads:“The limited series chronicles young Cora’s (Thuso Mbedu) journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.

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