Micro review: \'Black Leopard\, Red Wolf\'

Jamaican-born writer Marlon James won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for his 2014 novel A Brief History of Seven Killings which is about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley. Now, five years later, the author is back with an epic fantasy novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf which is set in the back-drop of Africa. Merging fantasy, history, myths and folklores along with his imagination, James transports the readers to a fictional place which is full of adventures and dark happenings.
The book is set at a time when there is a political upheaval and rumours of an impending war between rival kingdoms in pre-colonised Africa. The story is centred on a young, gay, tough and unsentimental hunter named Tracker. He has “a nose for finding what would rather stay lost” and so he is hired on a mission to find a child who went missing three years ago, while the reason of finding him is still unknown. Tracker slowly realises that he is not the only one in search of the lost boy as he meets various characters on his journey— from the shape shifting man-cat Leopard to Bunshi the witch-- and joins their gang to find the boy. Just as the characters are able to change their form and elements, their intentions and loyalties are also shifting and slippery. Will they find the boy—dead or alive? Who is the missing boy and why is he needed? These are some of the vital questions which keep the readers hooked to know more.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the first book in The Dark Star Trilogy. It is narrated through Tracker’s point of view; the subsequent books will be a retelling of the same events through other characters’ point of view, the author has revealed. The book is complete with a map which gives flight to the readers’ imagination. While the story is set in a fantasy world, it gets dark and gruesome at some parts. The book has even been compared to George RR Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ and JRR Tolkien’s works.

How critics view the book:

Holly Williams wrote for Independent, "Black Leopard is gloriously imaginative in both its fine-grain detail, and its sprawl. Known for his skill at describing violence, James provides many skin-crawlingly visceral moments, described with ripe yet precise language."

"A Booker winner’s epic is frantic and dull," says Robert Douglas-Fairhurst for The Times.

Michiko Kakutani wrote for The New York Times, "A fantasy set in Africa, by way of Hieronymus Bosch, García Márquez and Marvel Comics."

David Canfield wrote for Entertainment Weekly, "For all its political power and artistry, Black Leopard, Red Wolf triumphs in James’ swagger. He hasn’t merely produced a literary earthquake. He shows off, his stylistic flair a cocky muscle-flex. This is a concert, a production, an epic. This is a revolutionary book."

Ron Charles wrote for The Washington Post, "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.”

Amal El-Mohtar wrote for National Public Radio, "'Black Leopard, Red Wolf' is a beast of a book"

David Fear wrote for Rolling Stone, “James has concocted a Tolkienesque tale that feels steeped in specific mythologies, eons-old superstitions, old wives’ tales and oral storytelling traditions.”