Black Leopard Red Wolf is an epic fantasy novel by Jamaican author Marlon James. Released as the first installation in the planned Dark Star trilogy, the novel was published in 2019 by Riverhead Books. The second novel in the trilogy is titled Moon Witch Spider King and is yet to be released.
Tracker is a skilled hunter known all across the kingdom for his unrivalled abilities to find anyone or anything. He is tasked by a slave master to find a mysterious young boy who has been missing for years. On his mission, he is joined by a group of other people looking for the same boy. Through the next decade, Tracker will travel all around the kingdom and encounter shape-shifters, mystic healers, witches, skin-shedders, mercenaries, and giants.
James drew his inspiration from ancient African mythology to create a fictional world of two conflicting African states. Divided into the North and South kingdom, the beleaguered region is culturally rich and encompasses diverse tribes, mystic powers, and self-governing cities.
For the longest time, James has expressed his desire to develop a fictional universe that heavily explores the untapped pool of African myths and legends. He mostly focused his research on the oral history of West African empires and states like Mali, Ghana, Songhai, and Fulani.
Through his research, he discovered and marveled at just how fluid African history is, a consequence of the way in which history was passed down through oral literature. This left room for many interpretations of history, freeing the people from the stagnation that might arise with remembering dark moments in history.
Black Leopard Red Wolf has been praised for its undeniable originality and essence. The fictional version of Africa in the novel is untouched by Western invasion. This allows for an African story that flows in perfect form. The novel won the 2020 Locus Award for Best Horror and 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science Fiction. It was also nominated for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2020 Lambda Literary Award.
The colorful cover was designed by Venezuelan graphic designer Pablo Gerardo Camacho. American actor Michael B. Jordan acquired the film rights to the novel in 2019 through his company Outlier Society Productions.
