According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films is understood to have settled on Toni Morrison's 1998 novel Paradise as its next telefilm adaptation for ABC.

Sources stressed that deals are still in the process of being hammered out for the principals on the project, which is eyed as a four-hour miniseries. Sources said Darnell Martin is attached to pen the screenplay adaptation as well as to direct; earlier this year, she directed the ABC Emmy-nominated "Oprah Winfrey Presents: Their Eyes Were Watching God" telepic that starred Halle Berry.

Paradise, the first novel Morrison published after winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, revolves around the murder of several woman by a group of black men from a small town of Ruby, Okla.

That story line is set in 1976, but the novel goes back in time more than 100 years to trace the turbulent history of the town and its predominantly black population.