African fantasy on track
“The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.” With that opening line, Marlon James sets the stage for the brooding and epic journey that is Black Leopard, Red Wolf. In the follow-up to his Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, the Jamaican author swaps the streets of Kingston for an African-inspired fantasy realm while maintaining a high literary standard.
The character who delivers those fateful opening words is Tracker, a fantasy hero unlike any other. We learn early on that he has been arrested after the events of the novel and is recounting his story to his captors. Tracker’s trade is finding people, thanks to his powerful sense of smell that allows him to locate anyone anywhere in the world once he has caught their scent.
His powers see him recruited to be part of a quest to find a boy long ago stolen, though Tracker senses his employers and fellow hunters are hiding the true reason for this journey from him. He joins this unlikely fellowship regardless, plunging into conspiracy and the darkest parts of the world.
The idea of a band of misfits brought together is hardly new but James is well aware of that. He skilfully blends fantasy tropes while dismantling the genre and rebuilding it anew. It is easy to compare this to Game of Thrones by way of Wakanda — Marvel Comic’s fictional SubSaharan
country — but James’ creation is so wonderfully original and powerfully realised, deftly blending African mythology with dreamscape worlds, it stands far apart from the lands it appears similar to. The imagery is powerful: haunted rainforests and scarred savannahs unfurling around a complicated royalty and malleable witchcraft, but this kingdom is most vibrant when it focuses on its inhabitants.
If there is anything to fault, it’s James’ inability to curb his own imagination. Detailed explanations and backstories are given to characters and creatures that dwarf their actual appearances while the plot often skips over other events. Multiple subplots are woven into the story that are explored and expanded upon while having little weight over the proceedings, many involving graphic interludes that feel grotesque for the sake of it.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf requires serious commitment at first, the story dense and the exposition slow to come, the plot dragging and stalling even after the central mission finally begins. Yet James is a master storyteller and the slow build pays off for those willing to go on this journey.
It is the first of a trilogy, the next two parts retelling the story from different perspectives. How that involves Tracker remains to be seen but James’ world is engaging, intriguing and rich enough that the more time we can spend in there, the more secrets we can unlock, the better.