Warner Bros. Pictures is digging into "The Brief History of the Dead," acquiring feature film rights to Kevin Brockmeier's forthcoming novel with studio-based 1492 Pictures on board to produce and Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe David Auburn to adapt.

Warners execs and 1492 principals -- Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe -- bought the project based on Brockmeier's first chapter, which was published by the New Yorker this month. Brockmeier is currently at work finishing the rest of the novel, his reps said.

The supernatural love story is about a blind man who arrives in a new city, telling a story of having traveled across a desert after his death. The other city-dwellers have their own elaborate and remarkable tales of crossing into this strange world, from which inhabitants depart as mysteriously as they entered.

Sources said that Columbus is eyeing the project as a directing vehicle, though that could change as it's still very early in the development process. At the studio, senior vp production Courtenay Valenti brought the project in and will oversee.

Brockmeier is repped by Writers & Artists Group International for film and television and by Jennifer Carlson at Dunow & Carlson for publishing. His other books include "City of Names" and "The Truth About Celia."

Auburn is also repped by Writers & Artists Group International. He won both a Pulitzer and a Tony Award for his work on "Proof." He is also writing "Il Mare" for Warners.

Both Brockmeier and Auburn hail from Little Rock, Ark., where they met growing up.