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The Disappearers
  • Published: 8 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241714416
  • Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 640
  • RRP: $38.00

The Disappearers

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
8 Sept 2026
Hardback
17 Oct 2026
EBook
3 Sept 2026
Audiobook
3 Sept 2026
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Marlon James’s triumphant return to the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings

‘Darkness is a mood in Jamaica . . .'

The Disappearers is Marlon James’s triumphant return to the Jamaica of A Brief History of Seven Killings – a place of heat and chaos, and of danger for anyone outside the heteronormal.

So when eight gay men meet for the first time, in Kingston in 1988, answering the casting call for an openly queer play, they are already taking a big risk. But that is nothing compared to what rains down on them when a mob descends on one of their rehearsals.

By the end of this night, one man is dead, all are injured, and two subsequently disappear.
As the survivors heal, each man finds he must confront the bigotry and homophobia that the attack laid bare. Some try to forget; some embrace their rage; and some simply vanish – but all are forever scarred.

As one of the victims puts it, ‘there’s a difference between when something ends and when something stops’. And this story won’t stop until both the disappearers and the perpetrators have been tracked, along trails both hot and cold, and an ending reached.

Epic and intimate, violent and forgiving, The Disappearers is a tour de force which only Marlon James could have written – both an unflinching portrait of the hatred and shame faced by gay men in a society which refuses to accept them, and a deeply human story of acceptance and insight.
  • Published: 8 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241714416
  • Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 640
  • RRP: $38.00
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About the author

Marlon James

Marlon James is the author of the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings; the National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf; the New York Times-bestselling Moon Witch, Spider King; The Book of Night Women; and John Crow’s Devil. In addition to the Booker Prize, his novels have won the American Book Award, the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Born in Jamaica, James lives in New York City.
MJ

Also by Marlon James

Moon Witch, Spider King
Black Leopard, Red Wolf
See all

Praise for The Disappearers

James brings multilayered life to a troubling era in his homeland’s recent history. He engages with his landscapes and the diverse characters populating them with intensity, passion, and bountiful, often graphic detail. With the same affinity for Dickensian storytelling he’s shown in his sword-and sorcery epics, James tells this searingly realistic tale through interview fragments, journal entries, letters, and in recreating the horrific attack, with random, frantic voices that leave unsettling echoes. Even when it stress-tests your senses, this sprawling depiction of gay life in Jamaica is galvanizing

Kirkus Reviews *starred review*

Crackling with sass, suspense and scintillation, The Disappearers is Marlon James’s unapologetic and unvanquished masterpiece on queer rage and solidarity

Santanu Bhattacharya

This language-rich novel is filled with vivid slang … As always, James writes exceptionally well….This book may remind readers of works by John Rechy, Jean Genet, William Burroughs, and Hubert Selby, but James is his own man

Library Journal, *starred review*

Captivating and epic . . . James renders his characters’ tumultuous inner lives with striking imagery and energy; their dialogue is rapid, keen, and hard-hitting. In all, a gritty, powerful, and gripping read

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