Black History Month just got better with the release of Marlon James’ first novel from his highly anticipated African fantasy trilogy.
“Black Leopard, Red Wolf” by Marlon James is the first offering from his Dark Star Trilogy, being touted as the “African Game of Thrones,” where myth and history come together in this tale of a mercenary hired to find a missing child.
The Jamaican-born writer and professor at Macalester College in Minnesota, is the recipient of the prestigious Man Booker Prize (2015) for “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” his fascinating crime novel based on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley. He is also the author of “John Crow’s Devil” and “The Book of Night Women.”
Now, fans of his literary genius are ready to devour the first of his spectacular volume work planned for this trilogy, where fantasy and action are thrown together in a world that weaves in elements of Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria and other African countries.
A critic said, “James has spun an African fantasy as vibrant, complex and haunting as any Western mythology, and nobody who survives reading this book will ever forget it. That thunder you hear is the jealous rage of Olympian gods.”
“Black Leopard, Red Wolf”
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: “He has a nose,” people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.
As Tracker follows the boy’s scent—from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers—he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?
Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that’s come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that’s also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.
Michiko Kakutani wrote in the New York Times, “In these pages, James conjures the literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe — filled with dizzying, magpie references to old movies and recent TV, ancient myths and classic comic books, and fused into something new and startling by his gifts for language and sheer inventiveness.”
While Ron Charles from the Washington Post wrote, “Harvesting mythology and fantasy from the rich soil of Africa — from the Anansi tales to the Sundiata Epic and so much more — James hangs a string of awesome adventures on this quest for the missing boy. Tracker and his violent companions explore lush jungles, cities in the sky and a dark forest where the memory of elephants charges through the trees. Dare to enter this realm, and you’ll confront a catalog of the continent’s creatures: ferocious trolls, giant bats and a bloodsucking fiend made entirely of flies. Clearly, Hollywood special effects are still playing catch-up with the magic our very best fantasy writers can spin. But, frankly, it’s one intimate encounter with a hyena that will haunt your nightmares.”
The Dark Star Trilogy will unravel the tale of eight mercenaries hired to locate a missing boy; nine years later, the boy is dead and only three mercenaries remain, locked in the dungeon of a dying king awaiting trial for the boy’s death. Each book will take on one perspective—the Tracker, the Moon Witch, and the Boy—and reveal, Rashomon-style, what the previous books got right and wrong about the story.
Let’s start reading!
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