Reclaiming the Fantasy Novel with Marlon James, Michael Bennett
Date(s): Friday, January 17, 2020, 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Location: Carson Ballroom, Old Main, Arizona State University, 400 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281
Type(s): Conversation, Discussion, Talk
Genre and Form(s): African American, Fantasy, Fiction, Novels, Science Fiction
Cost: Free
About this Event
As people of colour in the diaspora, we’re particularly interested in stories that go beyond slavery. I’m tired of that being seen as the furthest in the past we can go or that swords and sorcery aren’t available to us.
—Marlon James, from "You have to risk going too far," an interview with Alex Preston at The Guardian, February 17, 2019
How does a global medievalism move into Afrofuturism? How do we transcend the worlds of Tolkein and Martin as writers, as readers? What does it look like to reclaim and reinvent the fantasy novel?
Presented in partnership with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS), award-winning author Marlon James shares the literary, historical, and cultural influences behind James' latest novel, Black Leopard Red Wolf at Reclaiming the Fantasy Novel: A Dialogue with Marlon James on Friday, January 17, 2020 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Old Main in the Carson Ballroom at Arizona State University Tempe (400 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281).
James will be joined in conversation by Michael Bennett, Associate Research Professor at the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University.
In anticipation of James visit, ACMRS will also be hosting a reading group for Black Leopard Red Wolf on Tuesday, December 3, 2019 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Lattie F. Coor Hall, Room 4401, Arizona State University Tempe (976 S Forest Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281).
While encouraged, RSVPs are purely for the purposes of monitoring attendance, gauging interest, and sending information and reminders ahead of the event. Seating is first-come, first-served. You do not have to register or RSVP to attend. This event is open to the public and free.
About the Book
“Gripping, action-packed….The literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
The epic novel, an African Game of Thrones, from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings
In the stunning first novel in Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child.
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: “He has a nose,” people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, 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. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.
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. As he struggles to survive, 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?
Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that’s come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that’s also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both. (Description provided by Penguin Random House)
To learn more about Black Leopard Red Wolf, you can visit Penguin Random House's website or order the book through local independent bookstores like Changing Hands or Palabras Bilingual Bookstore.
