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Man Booker Winner Marlon James Pens Epic Fantasy

By January 12, 2017Authors, New Releases, News

Move over George R. R. Martin because there’s a new pretender to the throne as it’s announced that Man Booker winner Marlon James is to publish the first book in a new epic fantasy series in 2018.

The author who won the Man Booker Prize 2015 for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings has been working on the trilogy throughout last year. The trilogy will be known as The Dark Star Trilogy and will contain three novels, Black Leopard, Red Wolf; Moon Witch, and Night Devil; The Boy and the Dark Star and the trilogy will follow three characters called the Tracker, the Moon Witch and the Boy.

The series has already been dubbed the African Game of Thrones and given the author’s high profile after the Man Booker win, we expect this to be a bestselling trilogy.

James said he was partly inspired after a conversation over The Hobbit adaptation. While James thought no one would care if the Hobbits were black or Asian his friend believed it would matter because Lord of the Rings is British and Celtic mythology. This led James to point out that Lord of the Rings isn’t actually real, making the author realise that no one has yet really tapped into African history and mythology in the way that Tolkien tapped into Celtic mythology.

Marlon James admits to being a huge fan of sci-fi from Tolkien to Angela Carter, and Jasper Fforde too and will be taking inspiration for the trilogy from the African history and mythology he grew up with.

The Dark Star trilogy is to be published by Riverhead Books and the first book in the series, Black Leopard is set for release in the autumn of 2018.



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