An Epic For The Times

Booker winner pens an African fantasy saga to rival Tolkien in the first part of a planned series.

- Samuel Finnemore

Marlon James’ fourth novel has already been showered in Tolkien comparisons, but don’t expect a genteel tale of an unexpected journey. Black Leopard, Red Wolf opens as it means to go on – with defiance and challenge, as a captive showers his interviewer in threats and insults. The prisoner is Tracker, a supernaturally gifted mercenary known by no other name. The story he grudgingly unfolds is one of a strange and dangerous quest. It’s also a story he insists is over: “The boy is dead. What else is there to know?”

There’s plenty, but none of it is given up easily or comfortably, as you’d expect from the author of the kaleidoscopic and confronting Booker Prize winner