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

by Marlon James

My uncle turned to me, almost whispering as if telling me horrible news around strangers. “Every sixty times the earth flies around the sun, we celebrate death and rebirth. The very firstborn were twins, but only when the divine male loosed his seed in the earth was there life. This is why the man who is also a woman, and the woman who is also a man, is a danger. It is too late. You have grown too old and will be both man and woman.” He watched me until his words spoke to my mind. “I will never be a man?” “You will be a man. But this other is in you and will make you other. Like the men who roam the lands and teach our wives woman secrets. You will know as they know. By the gods, you might lay as they lay.” “Beloved uncle, you cause me great sadness.” I did not tell him that the woman was already raging inside me and I desired her desires, but otherwise did not feel like a woman for I wanted to hunt deer, and run and sport. “I wish to be cut now,” I said. “Your father should have cut you. Now it is too late. Too late. You will be one always on the line between the two. You will always walk two roads at the same time. You will always feel the strength of one and the pain of the other.”