Marlon James - Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. He is the first Jamaican to win the Man Booker Prize, for his bestselling novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. This novel also won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Minnesota Book Award, and has been translated into twenty-one languages. Marlon James is also the author of two other novels, John Crows Devil and The Book of Night Women. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the first instalment in his Dark Star trilogy.

A Brief History of Seven Killings

The Book of Night Women

John Crows Devil

To Jeff, for quartermoon and a million other things

KWASH DARA, son of Kwash Netu; King of the North Kingdom, aka the Spider King

TRACKER, hunter known by no other name

HIS FATHER

HIS MOTHER

BELOVED UNCLE, a great chief of the Ku

KU, a river tribe and territory

GANGATOM, a river tribe, territory, and enemy of the Ku

LUALA LUALA , a river tribe and territory north of the Ku

ABOYAMI, a father

AYODELE, his son

WITCHMAN, necromancer of the Ku

ITAKI, a river witch

KAVA/ASANI, boy of the Ku

LEOPARD, shape-shifting hunter known by a few other names

YUMBOES, bush fairies and guardians of children

THE SANGOMA, an antiwitch

THE MINGI, who are:

Giraffe Boy

Smoke Girl

Albino

Ball Boy

The joined twins

ASANBOSAM, monstrous eater of human flesh

THE GANGATOM CHIEF

THE AESI, chancellor of Kwash Dara

BUNSHI/POPELE, river jengu, mermaid, shape-shifter

SOGOLON, the Moon Witch

SADOGO, of the Ogos, tall, mighty men who are not giants

AMADU KASAWURA, a slaver

BIBI, his manservant

NSAKA NE VAMPI, a mercenary

NYKA, a mercenary

FUMELI, the Leopards bowman

BELEKUN THE BIG, a fat elder

ADAGAGI THE WISE, a wise elder

AMAKI THE SLIPPERY, an elder nobody knows

NOOYA, a woman possessed by the lightning bird

THE BULTUNGI, avengers

ZOGBANU, trolls originally from the Blood Swamp

VENIN, a girl raised to be food for the Zogbanu

CHIPFALAMBULA, a great fish

GHOMMIDS, sometimes-nice forest creatures

EWELE, a vicious ghommid

EGBERE, his cousin, vicious when hungry

ANJONU, spirit of the Darklands who reads hearts

THE MAD MONKEY, a deranged primate

BASU FUMANGURU, elder of the North Kingdom, murdered

HIS WIFE, murdered

HIS SONS, murdered

THE SEVEN WINGS, mercenaries

KAFUTA, lord of a house

MISS WADADA, owner of a brothel

EKOIYE, a whore who loves civet musk

THE BUFFALO, a very smart buffalo

KONGORI CHIEFTAIN ARMY, local constables

MOSSI OF AZAR, third prefect of the Kongori chieftain army

MAZAMBEZI, a prefect

RED OGO, another Ogo

BLUE OGO, another Ogo

THE MASTER OF ENTERTAINMENTS, the Ogo fight master

LALA, his slave

THE MAWANA WITCHES, dirt mermaids, aka mud jengu

TOKOLOSHE, a small gremlin who makes himself invisible

OLD MAN, lord of a hut and southern griot

THE QUEEN OF DOLINGO, as it says

HER CHANCELLOR

DOLINGON SLAVE BOY

THE WHITE SCIENTISTS, darkest of the necromancers and alchemists

BAD IBEJI, a malformed twin

JAKWU, white guard for King Batuta

IPUNDULU, vampire lightning bird

SASABONSAM, winged brother of Asanbosam

ADZE, vampire and bug swarm

ELOKO, grass troll and cannibal

LISSISOLO OF AKUM, sister of Kwash Dara, nun of the divine sisterhood

SHADOWINGS, night demons who serve the Aesi

IKEDE, a southern griot

KAMANGU, a son

NIGULI, a son

KOSU, a son

LOEMBE, a son

NKANGA, a son

KHAMSEEN, a daughter

A YOUNG WITCH

A MERCHANT

HIS WIFE

HIS SON

KAMIKWAYO, a white scientist turned monster

The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.

I hear there is a queen in the south who kills the man who brings her bad news. So when I give word of the boys death, do I write my own death with it? Truth eats lies just as the crocodile eats the moon, and yet my witness is the same today as it will be tomorrow. No, I did not kill him. Though I may have wanted him dead. Craved for it the way a glutton craves goat flesh. Oh, to draw a bow and fire it through his black heart and watch it explode black blood, and to watch his eyes for when they stop blinking, when they look but stop seeing, and to listen for his voice croaking and hear his chest heave in a death rattle saying, Look, my wretched spirit leaves this most wretched of bodies, and to smile at such tidings and dance at such a loss. Yes, I glut at the conceit of it. But no, I did not kill him.

Bi oju ri enu a pamo.

Not everything the eye sees should be spoken by the mouth.

This cell is larger than the one before. I smell the dried blood of executed men; I hear their ghosts still screaming. Your bread carries weevils, and your water carries the piss of ten and two guards and the goat they fuck for sport. Shall I give you a story?

I am just a man who some have called a wolf. The child is dead. I know the old woman brings you different news. Call him murderer, she says. Even though my only sorrow is that I did not kill her. The redheaded one said the childs head was infested with devils. If you believe in devils. I believe in bad blood. You look like a man who has never shed blood. And yet blood sticks between your fingers. A boy you circumcised, a young girl too small for your big Look how that thrills you. Look at you.