Following its successful home debut in South Africa on M-Net, DEVIL’S PEAK – the 5-part miniseries adaptation of Deon Meyer’s prize-winning 2005 novel – has been picked up for further international distribution, with the USA and Canada next to discover police detective Benny Griessel’s world. Exclusive North American rights have been acquired for Tubi’s video-on-demand service, and the series premiered on the platform on 15 January 2024.

On behalf of Tubi, Chief Content Officer Adam Lewinson said: ‘DEVIL’S PEAK is a gripping crime drama that showcases the talent as well as the unique landscape of South Africa. Tubi is committed to providing our diverse audiences with an extensive selection of premium content, and DEVIL’S PEAK promises to captivate U.S. audiences as it has in other parts of the world.’

The series is also available in New Zealand – where it is already streaming on ThreeNow – and will air in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg on BBC First, broadcasting every Sunday at 21:00 (CET) from 21 January 2024.

Produced by Lookout Point and Expanded Media Productions, with backing by BBC Studios and Multichoice Studios, the series stars Hilton Pelser (THE KISSING BOOTH, MOFFIE) as Benny, with Sisanda Henna (who starred in previous Deon Meyer adaptation TRACKERS), Tarryn Wyngaard, Shamilla Miller, and Masasa Mbangeni. The 5 x 1-hour series is directed by Jozua Malherbe (JUSTICE SERVED, GRIEKWASTAD) and written by Matthew Orton (MOON KNIGHT, OPERATION FINALE). International distribution for the show is being handled by BBC Studios.

DEVIL’S PEAK sees the talented but broken Benny Griessel tracking down a righteous vigilante killer whose crimes are capturing the imagination of the city. Meanwhile, grieving father Thobela Mpayipheli seeks justice after the untimely murder of his son. Benny and Thobela are brought into the orbit of a trapped mother, Christine, who is willing to do anything to achieve a better life for herself and her daughter, and the fates of these three characters become inextricably linked. Combining gripping tension with uncompromising authenticity, DEVIL’S PEAK offers an original South African take on the investigative thriller for today.

Originally published in Afrikaans as INFANTA in 2005, DEVIL’S PEAK won the ATKV Prize in South Africa and won the Svenska Oversatta Kriminalroman (Martin Beck) Award and the Readers’ Award from CritiquesLibres.com in October 2010. The book is published in English in the UK and Canada by Hodder & Stoughton, and in the USA by Little, Brown, as well as in many translation markets.

About Deon Meyer

Deon Meyer lives in Stellenbosch. His books are sold in 23 countries, and have been awarded many prizes around the world: the Deutsche Krimi Prize in Germany, the ATKV Prize in South Africa, the Martin Beck Award in Sweden and Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Le Prix Mystère de la Critique in France. COBRA was shortlisted for the 2015 CWA International Dagger, THIRTEEN HOURS was shortlisted for the 2010 CWA International Dagger, and HEART OF THE HUNTER, was longlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Prize and selected as one of Chicago Tribune’s ‘10 best mysteries and thrillers of 2004’. THE DARK FLOOD was longlisted for the 2023 CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation. His latest novel LEO, a new Benny Griessel thriller, enjoyed ten weeks at the top of the South African bestseller lists, Number One in all categories.

Praise for the novel DEVIL’S PEAK

‘This is one of those entertainment fictions that teaches one more than any textbook or documentary. This thriller is a fascinating portrayal of one aspect of life in post-apartheid South Africa…winding up the tension to a gripping, shocking climax. Highly recommended.’ – Literary Review

‘Deon Meyer is…one of the sharpest and most perceptive thriller writers around…Meyer paints a wonderful picture of the dark side of the rainbow nation… Against the odds Meyer leaves us with a resolution that is both poignant and supremely satisfying. In no way is this a negative book about the new South Africa. It makes the place come alive with a breathless urgency that recalls the 1940s Los Angeles of Dashiel Hammet or Raymond Chandler: a bit mad, a bit bad, a bit dangerous, but exotically vibrant, a society in adolescence. Think of Meyer in the way that you might have regarded a bottle of Cape red a dozen years ago – dark, strong with an unusual but beguilingly moreish taste. If it can produce popular literature as good as this, the new South Africa has a lot going for it.’ – Peter Millar, The Times

‘It isn’t just about the action. A far, far cry from your basic ‘cops and robbers’ or blow-by-blow ‘good guys v bad guys’, DEVIL’S PEAK is a grown-up and multi-faceted tale, tough and visceral in tone, but also rich in flawed characters and deeply redolent of both urban and rural South Africa; not just the geographic landscape, but the political and social scene as well.’ – Paul Finch

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Edward Wilson Lee’s much-acclaimed SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND: In Search of a Global Poet is out in paperback in the US today from Farrar Straus & Giroux. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o described it as ‘a masterly literary detective adventure’ and ‘a compelling read.’

First published by William Collins in the UK and FSG in the US in 2016, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND was one of The Bookseller’s Top 6 Shakespeare picks of 2016, and was highlighted in previews of ‘the most significant Shakespeare books’ in The Times, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. It will be published in German by btb in 2018.

Investigating the literary culture of the early interaction between European countries and East Africa, Edward Wilson-Lee uncovers an extraordinary sequence of stories in which explorers, railway labourers, decadent émigrés, freedom fighters, and pioneering African leaders made Shakespeare their own in this alien land.

SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND is the first book by Edward Wilson-Lee, a Fellow in English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. In a narrative that is part travelogue, part memoir, a satire, an ode to Shakespeare and a potted history of East Africa, Wilson-Lee aims to find the holy grail of literary studies – an answer to how and why Shakespeare is acclaimed as a global poet and why his writings should be so universally adored.

SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND takes Wilson-Lee back to the lands of his childhood (he grew up in Kenya) to dig through mouldering archives to recover the unknown story of the part played by Shakespeare’s works in the region’s history. His story is a literary adventure that throws high culture and the wild together in celebration of Shakespeare’s legacy as a poet of the world.

With its incredible series of stories and momentous travels from Zanzibar, through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan, this literary adventure throws high culture and the wild together in celebration of Shakespeare's legacy as a poet of the world.

Edward Wilson- Lee’s new book THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS, will be published by Collins in May 2018. It tells the riveting story of Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son, Hernando Colon, and his quest to build the first universal library of print. He personally scoured the bookshops of Europe in an attempt to acquire a copy of every book, and bringing them back to his library in Seville – where he drove himself mad attempting to devise how best to navigate and organise the world of print.

Edward Wilson-Lee is a Fellow in English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he teaches medieval and Renaissance literature and Shakespeare. After growing up in Kenya and Switzerland, he went to university in London, New York, Oxford and Cambridge, living briefly in Mexico and New Orleans in between.

Praise for SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND:

‘Edward Wilson-Lee goes in search of Shakespeare in Africa and finds him entwined in every twist and turn of the drama of colonization and decolonization of the continent from the 17th century to the present. The result is a masterly literary detective adventure. A compelling read.’ – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o,

'There will be many books published to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Few will be bolder than Shakespeare in Swahililand: Adventures with the Ever-Living Poet, in which Edward Wilson-Lee gets out of the seminar room and treks through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan to discover how Shakespeare has been constantly reinvented in Africa.' – Matthew Reisz, Times Higher Education

'Wilson-Lee’s account of his East African Shakespeare-hunt is vivid and full of insights. What we learn about colonial power relationships and historical currents is as convincing as any general explanations of Shakespeare’s universalism, but that, perhaps, is partly the point: it’s the very fact that Shakespeare is so read and performed, with these multiple interactions each revealing something, that demonstrates his boundless potential.' - Daniel Hahn, The Independent

‘SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND is an attempt to understand whether the great playwright’s work speaks across cultural boundaries to a shared humanity. … It has successfully told a lesser-known story of Africa, and it is a story worth knowing.’ – The Economist

‘This book evinces a remarkable familiarity with Africa, filtered through the lens of that most-English poet and playwright… Wilson-Lee shows the Bard to be a man for all continents.’ – Critic’s Choice, The New Criterion

‘Compelling and affecting" – Tim Black, Spiked!

'✭✭✭✭' - Michael Kerr, Telegraph Travel

‘I thought nothing could surprise me about the impact of England’s greatest cultural figure, but this fascinating, readable book about his influence in East Africa certainly did.’ – The Lady

‘A glorious melange of travel, biography, history and satire’ – The Times, South Africa

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