Night Manager Producer to Adapt We Were Never Here

The Ink Factory (The Night Manager) is partnering with Marc Platt (La La Land, Bridge of Spies) and Adam Siegel (Drive, 2 Guns) to adapt We Were Never Here, a debut novel by Lara Prescott.

Based on events surrounding the publication of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and the role the CIA played in using it as a weapon of propaganda for the West, the novel We Were Never Here has already been sold in 25 countries. The story is set in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War and is told through the voices of the women at the center of the action.

We Were Never Here centers on a plan by the CIA plan to engineer the publication of Pasternak’s controversial novel Doctor Zhivago in his home country. Despite the fact that Pasternak was Russia’s greatest living author, the authorities there ordered the manuscript destroyed and the book banned due to themes they considered critical of the regime. The CIA smuggled the manuscript out of Russia, had it translated, and then smuggled the book back into the country, where it was used as anti-socialist propaganda.

Stephen Cornwell at The Ink Factory said: “In its ambition, scope and execution, We Were Never Here is a remarkable novel by any standards, and as a first novel, breathtaking. The greatest spy stories are also great love stories. Lara’s wonderful book delivers on all that promise and more, and we couldn’t be more excited to be setting out on the journey of bringing her characters and story to the screen than with our friends and colleagues Adam and Marc.”

“I’m thrilled by the interest in adapting my novel,” said Prescott. “And I’m such a huge fan of The Ink Factory, Marc Platt, and Adam Seigel. I know the story is in excellent hands.”

Seigel added, “While We Were Never Here thrillingly tells the untold story behind the publication of Doctor Zhivago—a story involving a recently declassified CIA mission and the truth behind one of the greatest and most well-known love stories of all time—at the center of Lara Prescott’s unforgettable novel is the audacious idea that a piece of art can change the world.”