Author(s): Marlon James

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'Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the kind of novel I never realized I was missing until I read it. A dangerous, hallucinatory, ancient Africa, which becomes a fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made, with language as powerful as Angela Carter's. I cannot wait for the next installment' Neil Gaiman In this stunning follow-up to his Man Booker-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James draws on a rich tradition of African mythology, fantasy and history to imagine an ancient world, a lost child, an extraordinary hunter, and a mystery with many answers... 'The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.' Tracker is a hunter, known throughout the thirteen kingdoms as one who has a nose - and he always works alone. But he breaks his own rule when, hired to find a lost child, he finds himself part of a group of hunters all searching for the same boy. Each of these companions is stranger and more dangerous than the last, from a giant to a witch to a shape-shifting Leopard, and each has secrets of their own. As the mismatched gang follow the boy's scent from perfumed citadels to infested rivers to the enchanted darklands and beyond, set upon at every turn by creatures intent on destroying them, Tracker starts to wonder: who really is this mysterious boy? Why do so many people want to stop him being found? And, most important of all, who is telling the truth and who is lying? Marlon James weaves a tapestry of breathtaking adventure through a world at once ancient and startlingly modern. And, against this exhilarating backdrop of magic and violence, he explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star Trilogy.

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STELLA'S REVIEW:
What to make of Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf? With comparisons to Tolkien’s Middle Earth, George R.R.Martin’s Game of Thrones (even James has jokingly dubbed the trilogy the 'African Game of Thrones') and accolades from Neil Gaiman it’s daunting before you even open the cover. Marlon James’ Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings blew your mind with its slang, its violence, its trippy dialogue and complex political machinations. It was an incredible piece of work that confronted readers, leaving some bewildered and others startled. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is far from this Jamaican world: it is the African epic fantasy that has not previously been written. Marlon James gives us a complex tempest of a story. At its centre is Tracker (a hunter), hired for his brilliant nose, able to track - one would say compelled to track - by his incredible sense of smell. Tracker is a loner, devoid of family (he has forsaken family, in fact even killed some of his kin - those who have wronged him), suspicious of people’s motives, yet drawn to danger and curious about others, especially those who dwell on the fringes of society. Tracker is also our narrator. We meet him imprisoned, confessing his crimes or beguiling his Inquisitor with stories. For this is a novel of stories and intrigue - stories that beget tales that in turn tell us more stories. At the heart of this tempest is a quest to find a child, and this quest pushes Tracker into the company of a group of mercenaries who are employed for this task. Twisting and turning through the world of Tracker - a world with his love/hate relationship to Leopard (a being who moves from leopard to beast with a barely a breath) - this is the story his jealousy of Leopard’s young bow man, of witches and anti-witches, of mingi children cast out, hunted and protected, of creatures that are both male and female, both human and mythic, of magical forests and bewitched lands, of ancient lands and power-hungry overlords and slavers, of cruelty and deceit, loyalty and betrayal. In a small part of this epic, the hyena women capture Tracker. They heckle him, desire him and piss on him with their long cocks, wish to devour him, kill him and free him. Torture and taunting is their real pleasure even as they argue among themselves - yet are they even real? (his missing eye is all that reveals to him that they probably are). And the tales keep coming at the reader. Complex, convoluted and endlessly fascinating, this work is oddly compelling and will have you turning the pages despite its violence, revulsion and cruelty. For alongside these elements are the strange machinations of the human heart, the desire to right wrongs, to absolve guilt with sacrifice or endangerment, to desire others, to be sensual, to overturn corruption and to be free from power structures enforced by others. Add to this some smart-arse characters, spiky female characters (mostly witches or other agents of spells and magic) and sparking dialogue that hums with tension and humour, and you will admire the first book in this trilogy - a trilogy that is laced with African mythology, ancient tales and a hallucinatory natural world which will have you spinning as well as intrigued.  

{STELLA}