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LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
'A brilliantly surreal story of exile and homecoming' GUARDIAN'S BOOK OF THE DAY 'A slim, stark, and captivatingly enigmatic début' NEW YORKER
A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years living in exile in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn't recognize the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone at the airport knows him—a man who calls him brother. As they travel to this man's house, the purpose of his visit comes into focus: he is here to find his real brother, who is dying.
Hangman is his tragicomic journey through homecoming and loss. It is a hilarious and twisted odyssey, peopled by phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and taxi drivers, the relatives and riddles that lead this man along a circuitous path towards the truth. This is the strangely honest story of one man's search for refuge—in this world and the one that lies beyond it.
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH, VULTURE, FRIEZE, BBC, READER'S DIGEST*
__________ MORE PRAISE FOR HANGMAN:
'Urgent and emotionally resonant' VOGUE
'Reinvents the novel of return... keeps you hooked' MONICA ALI
'Melancholic but weirdly hopeful' FT
'Remarkably assured and distinctive' TLS
'Laconic and darkly humorous' FRIEZE
'A striking masterful debut' NAMWALI SERPELL
'A bravura twist on the immigrant novel' DAILY MAIL
'Ruthlessly honest and startingly beautiful' MAAZA MENGISTE
'Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious' ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
'A brilliantly surreal story of exile and homecoming' GUARDIAN'S BOOK OF THE DAY 'A slim, stark, and captivatingly enigmatic début' NEW YORKER
A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years living in exile in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn't recognize the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone at the airport knows him—a man who calls him brother. As they travel to this man's house, the purpose of his visit comes into focus: he is here to find his real brother, who is dying.
Hangman is his tragicomic journey through homecoming and loss. It is a hilarious and twisted odyssey, peopled by phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and taxi drivers, the relatives and riddles that lead this man along a circuitous path towards the truth. This is the strangely honest story of one man's search for refuge—in this world and the one that lies beyond it.
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH, VULTURE, FRIEZE, BBC, READER'S DIGEST*
__________ MORE PRAISE FOR HANGMAN:
'Urgent and emotionally resonant' VOGUE
'Reinvents the novel of return... keeps you hooked' MONICA ALI
'Melancholic but weirdly hopeful' FT
'Remarkably assured and distinctive' TLS
'Laconic and darkly humorous' FRIEZE
'A striking masterful debut' NAMWALI SERPELL
'A bravura twist on the immigrant novel' DAILY MAIL
'Ruthlessly honest and startingly beautiful' MAAZA MENGISTE
'Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious' ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
June 19, 2023 Binyam’s beguiling and dreamlike debut chronicles an immigrant man’s return to his home country after 26 years. The unnamed narrator, a 50-something Black man, doesn’t know why he’s traveling, and the reader only knows someone has called him on the phone to say arrangements have been made for his trip. During the flight, an attendant inexplicably informs the narrator that the passenger next to him is dead. After he lands, a taxi takes him along roads that seem “random and resistant ” and he arrives at a bus depot with a vague sense that he’s meant to visit his dying brother. The route is circuitous, and it leads to an ending that’s twisty and illuminating. Along the way, the narrator has a series of random and mordantly funny encounters that highlight themes of colonialism and cultural differences (a foreign white woman who has adopted a Black farmer’s son claims she’s committed to “the work of mutual understanding,” and a local former clergyman says of a pile of donated clothing from abroad: “Although these people were ashamed of their old possessions, they were nevertheless attached to the idea of their possessions being used to their full extent”). This is one of those novels that demands a second reading, and is well worth the time. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency.
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Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
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