Chain-Gang All-Stars
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  • Published: 2 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9781529906295
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download

Chain-Gang All-Stars

Formats & editions
Paperback
26 Mar 2024
EBook
2 May 2023
Audiobook
2 May 2023
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The hotly anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black

Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars - the popular and highly controversial programme inside America's prison system. In packed arenas, watched by millions of live-stream viewers, prisoners compete as gladiators for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

Fan favourites Loretta Thurwar and Hamara 'Hurricane Staxxx' Stacker are teammates and lovers. Thurwar is nearing the end of her time on the circuit, free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares for her final encounters, as protestors gather at the gates, and as the programme's corporate owners stack the odds against her - will the price be simply too high?
  • Published: 2 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9781529906295
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
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About the author

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black. He is a National Book Foundation's '5 Under 35' honoree, a winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book and the Dylan Thomas Prize, among many other accolades. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx.

portrait photo of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Praise for Chain-Gang All-Stars

Defiant, awe-inspiring... Readers will be forever changed by this book.

Jessamine Chan, author of THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS

One of the most exciting young writers in America.

George Saunders, author of LINCOLN IN THE BARDO

[An] acclaimed master of our futuristic nightmares... While this is set in the future, it feels uncomfortably close to the present.

Oprah Daily

A searing debut with an unforgettable voice, Chain Gang All-Stars will force you to reevaluate what freedom in America really means.

Lit-Reactor

Beautiful and brutal, with a really furious social commentary underpinning it.

Bea Carvalho, Independent

Imagine The Hunger Games refashioned into a rowdy, profane, and indignant blues shout at full blast.

Kirkus

Like Orwell's 1984 and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Adjei-Brenyah's book presents a dystopian vision so upsetting and illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we're capable of doing... Shockingly intimate and moving.

Washington Post

[A] blazing debut novel... Chain-Gang All-Stars is also a breathless dystopian thriller.

Lit Hub

A sort of The Hunger Games meets Gladiator meets WWE meets the modern private prison system.

Elle

A brutal, heart-wrenching story that feels so close to reality.

Cosmopolitan

You cannot applaud Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut novel without getting blood on your hands...

New York Times Book Review

Adjei-Brenyah's acerbic vision lands like a lightning bolt of truth.

Esquire

Magnificent. A radical interrogation of incarceration, racism, entertainment, the whole fabric of American injustice, as well as a pure fire page turner.

Max Porter, author of SHY

Deservedly acclaimed, Adjei-Brenyah is as commanding a storyteller as he is a world-builder.

Daily Mail

Grimly funny, epically violent and - at times - surprisingly tender. Quite the ride.

Marie Claire

Compelling... The range of different narrators provides a smart 360-degree perspective of the too-familiar society that demands murder for entertainment.

SFX

Criminally entertaining.

Guardian

A hugely imaginative read - the world-building is masterful... Unmissable.

Independent

We simply couldn't put it down... enthralling and engaging.

Leanne Fridd, The Times