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

by Marlon James

This is not the first you have heard of shoga men. Call them with poetry as we do in the North; men with the first desire. Like the Uzundu warriors who are fierce for they have eyes for only each other. Or call them vulgar as you do in the south, like the Mugawe men who wear women’s robes so you do not see the hole you fuck.

Besides, I do as gods do. Of all the terrible features of your form, shame is the worst.”

You ever see a man who doesn’t know he’s unhappy, Leopard? Look for it in the scars on his woman’s face. Or in the excellence of his woodcraft and iron making, or in the masks he makes to wear himself because he forbids the world to see his own face. I am not happy, Leopard. But I am not unhappy that I know.”

“Fuck the gods, if you are not the worst of the cats,” I said.

The Leopard laughed and said, You are more entertaining than two Kampara actors pretending to fuck with wooden cocks.