Black Leopard, Red Wolf

The plot, narrated in flashback and with non-chronological episodes, centers on the character of Tracker, a man known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged on a tracking quest by the slaver Amadu Kasawura, to find a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier in the North Kingdom, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. Over nine years, Tracker's trials connect him with the Leopard, a shape-shifting hunter and Fumeli his bowman; Nyka, a skin-shedding mercenary (both of whom are former lovers of Tracker); the Sangoma, a divinatory healer who protects children cast out for having unique abilities, casts a protective charm on Tracker and taught him minor spells; a centuries-old Moon Witch named Sogolon that Tracker does not trust (whose story is the subject of Moon Witch, Spider King); a giant called an Ogo that they call Sadogo; a prefect soldier named Mossi that "smells of myrrh" and is sexually attracted to Tracker; and dozens more. The band in the quest is a hodgepodge full of unusual characters with secrets of their own. The plot of the book is largely framed as a conversation between Tracker and a captor of his, with Tracker narrating his life and the quest non-linearly. Several shifts occur throughout the novel, leading to a seemingly intentional obfuscation of the narrative and plot. The larger plot involves political tensions between different tribes, as well as historical and mounting tensions between the North Kingdom and the South Kingdom.

As Tracker follows the boy's scent—from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers—he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. These fantastical creatures and figures include the Omoluzu, roof-walking "night demons from an age before this age", bultungin (were-hyenas), a creature called the Aesi who sends assassins made of dust and can telekinetically control masses of people, an impundulu (which drains victims blood, turning them into zombies filled with lightning) who kidnapped the boy to use as bait to enter the homes of victims, swamp trolls, a minor water goddess/potential water demon/trickster named Popele (also called Bunshi), and more. Other supernatural elements of the novel include the Darklands, where dangerous creatures live and time and distance are seemingly irrelevant, and the Ten and Nine Doors, magically linked doorways scattered throughout the North Kingdom and surrounding territory that both Tracker's "fellowship" and their enemies use to move quickly. Throughout the novel, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?

Themes that the novel explores include the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, desire, Machiavellianism, duty and honor. James offers a clue to his underlying theme early on in the saga: "Truth eats lies just as the crocodile eats the moon."[4]

James conceived the idea for the book long before his reception of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings;[15] he has repeatedly expressed his desire to build a "vast playground of [African] myth and history and legend that other people can draw from,"[2] analogously to J. R. R. Tolkien's similar efforts for Britain.[2][15][13] His research, which began "in August 2015," two months before he won the Booker,[11][4] took two years and was largely focused on the condition of "the pre-Christian, pre-Islam, original African religious Africa."[4][1] The cultures which James principally drew on were "central and west African with a bit from the east"; the cultures of the Omo valley informed the Ku and Gangatom villages, and West African empires (Mali, Songhai, and Ghana) were the inspiration for the book's depiction of cities.[13]

James has acknowledged his debt to the fluid nature of African oral storytelling and poetry, celebrating "the whole idea that nothing is fixed in this universe";[2][4] the implications of the unreliability of the narrator in traditional Anansi stories, he argues, "[are] not just shifting truth, it’s shifting shape, it’s shifting identity, it’s shifting sexual preference."[10] In addition, he has noted that the idea of "an authentic story" or "director's cut" is alien to African storytelling, in which multiple versions of the same story may be given equal weight.[16]

He began writing after a conversation with Melina Matsoukas, who mentioned the television series The Affair, in which both halves of a troubled couple remember their affair in subtly different ways;[1][2][4] James intends the Dark Star trilogy to comprise three characters' conflicting accounts of the same events;[2][13] the sequel, Moon Witch, Spider King, will be the witch Sogolon's account.[17] James completed approximately one hundred pages of the novel before the end of the fall semester in 2016, having begun writing at the beginning of the semester.

Before the book's release, James referred to the planned trilogy as "African Game of Thrones". He later said that the description was a joke,[18][6] although he does not regret the comparison, commenting that both series retain supernatural elements while telling "decidedly adult" stories.[19]

The style of the book has been much praised by reviewers, variously hymned as "a voice of almost overwhelming confidence, earthiness, and brio,"[21] one of "beautiful flexibility,"[22] and an "adroit mingling of ancient and modern tones."[23] Many have commented on the book's place in the tradition of linguistically daring post-colonial literature;[2] Bhatia has argued that the book's language, unusual for epic fantasy, can be made sense of only when this struggle with a colonial language is accounted for, comparing James's situation to the self-expressed plight of Dambudzo Marechera: "For a black writer the language is very racist; you have to have harrowing fights and hair-raising panga duels with the language before you can make it do all that you want it to do."[6]

James's unsparing depiction of violence was much discussed;[2][22][6][24][12] Bhatia remarked that the book "should come along with multiple trigger warnings for rape, bestiality, dismemberment, mutilation, and sudden and violent death."[6] Some interviewers noted that this was a theme continuous from James's previous work, particularly Brief History.[15][11] James has repeatedly contended that to separate violence and the resultant suffering is distasteful;[10][13] he remarked that "if you don’t read the scene of the murder of a child and find it unbearable, then that scene failed."[15]

The review aggregator website Book Marks reported that 53% of critics gave the book a "rave" review, whilst 38% and 6% of the critics expressed "positive" or "mixed" impressions, respectively. Another 3% of the critics "panned" the book, based on a sample of 34 reviews.[25]

Amal El-Mohtar said that comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien and George R. R. Martin "are wildly inaccurate to the experience of reading this book," describing it as "more like if Toni Morrison had written Ovid's Metamorphoses."[22]

In October 2019 Black Leopard, Red Wolf was named a finalist in the National Book Award for Fiction.[26]

The book was named one of the top ten books of 2019 by The Washington Post.[27]

The sequel, Moon Witch, Spider King, will be released on February 15, 2022; it is narrated by the witch Sogolon.[28] The third volume will tentatively be titled White Wing, Dark Star.[29][30] The titles were initially given as Moon Witch, Night Devil and The Boy and the Dark Star.[31] In 2019, James described the plan of the trilogy: "this one is more picaresque, adventure, odyssey. The second one is probably more historical, magical realist. And the third one is gonna be mostly horror."[11]