Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy #1)

by Marlon James

Bi oju ri enu a pamo. Not everything the eye sees should be spoken by the mouth.

My name is Tracker. Once I had a name, but have long forgotten it.

The ground was right now not the ground, and the sky was not the sky, and lie was truth and truth was a shifting, slithering thing. Truth was making me sick.

Here is my belief. The first man was jealous of the first woman. Her lightning was too powerful, her screams and moans loud enough to wake up the dead. That man could never accept that the gods would gift the weaker woman with such riches, so before every girl becomes a woman, man sets up to steal it, cut it away, and throw it in the bush. But the gods put it there, hid it deep so that no man would have business going to find it. Man will pay for this.

Like, I like. Dislike, I love. Disgust, I can feel. Loathing, I can grab in the palm of my hand and squeeze. And hatred, I can live in hatred for days. But the smug smile of indifference on someone’s face makes me want to hack it off.

I didn’t want to become the kind of man who was never disturbed by such news.

Something to fight for, or nothing to lose, which makes you a finer warrior? I have no answer.

In everything, learning is to take from where you be to where you like to go.

Because we tell stories to live, and that sort of story needs a purpose, so that sort of story must be a lie. Because at the end of a true story, there is nothing but waste.