WRITERS
TOM ROB SMITH & DUSTIN LANCE BLACK
It's not every novelist whose debut gets long-listed for the prestigious Man Booker Prize, let alone one whose debut happens to be a thriller. But Child 44 is no ordinary page-turner; set in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, where the official line is that crime does not exist, it's a smart, terrifying exposé of a Stalinist society in which thought crime is worse than real crime. The 29-year-old son of antiques dealers, Tom Rob Smith (left) is now at work on a sequel called The Secret Speech, which takes place in the Soviet Union in 1956. Child 44, meanwhile, is set for the big screen, with Ridley Scott directing.Though Dustin Lance Black (right) was born the year after Harvey Milk was assassinated, Gus Van Sant signed on to direct his script for Milk; Black is also executive producer on the film. Having grown up in a Mormon household in Texas and California, Black lent some experience as a writer and executive story editor for the HBO series Big Love. He is also behind the screen adaptation of Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which will also be directed by Van Sant.
