Description

‘A gripping tale of homecoming and loss… ruthlessly honest and startlingly beautiful… profound and unforgettable’ Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King

‘Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious. We have a powerful new voice in Maya Binyam, one who knows how to make a story sing’ Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun

‘A subtle and peculiar novel about subtle and peculiar things – home, exile, injustice, family, return and life itself… a remarkable book’ Keith Ridgway, author of A Shock

‘A strikingly masterful debut… a clean, sharp, piercing – and deeply political novel’ Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows

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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 strangley honest story of one man’s search for refuge – in this world and the one that lies beyond it.

An existential journey, a tragic farce, a slapstick tragedy: Hangman is the shockingly original debut novel about exile, diaspora and the search for Black refuge, from a thrilling new literary voice

Publisher Review

'Hangman is a subtle and peculiar novel about subtle and peculiar things - home, exile, injustice, family, return, and life itself. Binyam has written a remarkable book - one that builds, beautifully, a world that feels true, while dismantling the world that feels real' - Keith Ridgway, author of A Shock 'A strikingly masterful debut. With a slow, sure hand, Hangman beckons you into a zone that at first seems as clear, as blank, and as eerily sunny as the pane of a window. Then it traps you there, until you notice the blots, bubbles, and fissures in the glass-and then the frame itself, then the shatter. A clean, sharp, piercing-and deeply political-novel' - Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows 'Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious, Hangman is the rare book agile enough to balance the surreality and painfully rigid actuality of life. We have a powerful new voice in Maya Binyam, one who knows how to make a story sing.' - Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun 'Hangman is a gripping story of homecoming and loss, of recuperation and letting go, all of it told in a voice that is at turns ruthlessly honest and startlingly beautiful. Maya Binyam is an immensely gifted writer and every page of this deeply moving novel offers us compelling and hard-earned truths. But what remains by the end is something that resembles a loving gesture from a long-lost relative: necessary and seismic, profound and unforgettable' - Maaza Mengiste, author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted The Shadow King 'Maya Binyam exquisitely captures unseen forces: the edges of consciousness, abstract political forces, and how they act on one another. Hangman is immersive and astonishing' - Tavi Gevinson