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
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is one of the most exciting young writers in America. His work is urgent, engaging, wildly entertaining, formally bold and politically electrifying. Read one page, any page, and you'll see what I mean. -- George Saunders, author of LINCOLN IN THE BARDO
An incredible feat - Adjei-Brenyah has created a completely built world that is rooted in reality, but also allows the imagination to expand on the silences and fallacies of a country hell-bent on glamorising the cruel practice of incarceration. -- Leila Mottley, author of NIGHTCRAWLING
A defiant, awe-inspiring novel that will be read, studied and celebrated for generations, Chain-Gang All-Stars leads with love. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah writes with stunning compassion and moral clarity as he interrogates every facet of our carceral world and the American spectacle of violence, never losing sight of the human cost of systemic injustice. Readers will be forever changed by this book. -- Jessamine Chan, author of THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS
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... So raw and tragic and primal is Chain-Gang All-Stars that despite its futuristic elements, it has the patina of some timeworn epic...Shockingly intimate and moving. * Washington Post *
You cannot applaud Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut novel without getting blood on your hands... Chain-Gang All-Stars is honest about the inhumanity of incarceration and the increasingly elaborate mechanisms we build in place of forgiveness and rehabilitation... [Adjei-Brenyah] fills the characters' inner lives to the brim... The society in which they live defines them by their worst deeds, but the writer of this novel refuses to. * New York Times Book Review *
Vividly imaginative and startling in its clarity of intent...A sort of The Hunger Games meets Gladiator meets WWE meets the modern private prison system. * Elle *
Adjei-Brenyah may have the buzziest book of the year . . . A ferocious attack on America's for-profit prison systems. * Goodreads' Most Anticipated Books of 2023 *
Beautiful and brutal, with a really furious social commentary underpinning it. -- Bea Carvalho * Independent, debut authors for 2023 *
Chain-Gang All-Stars surpasses all expectations...Adjei-Brenyah's acerbic vision lands like a lightning bolt of truth. * Esquire *
Chain-Gang All-Stars should pique your interest if titles like Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Atwood's Handmaid's Tale are more your vibe. * The Week *
Makes explicit how the spirit erodes as the body becomes currency. Adjei-Brenyah writes sharply about the economy of spectacle and the fickle alchemy between futility and hope. -- Raven Leilani, author of LUSTER
Given how incredible his debut collection was and is, it is no surprise to me that Adjei-Brenyah's debut novel is this extraordinary! Told with bold, muscular prose, this book is filled with surprising tenderness. Some of the best and most beautiful descriptions of action and violence I have ever read, which is not to say the book celebrates violence so much as it uses violence to explore American incarceration by imagining it as spectacle. As big as it is dazzling. Just wild how good and original this book is. A revelation! -- Tommy Orange, author of THERE THERE
This book will change you!...A masterpiece. * The Today Show's #ReadWithJenna *
The new maestro of dystopian lit has arrived. * Wired *
Adjei-Brenyah is...[an] acclaimed master of our futuristic nightmares...a keen observer of racial and socioeconomic disparities that result in a high number of Black people incarcerated. While this is set in the future, it feels uncomfortably close to the present. * Oprah Daily *
A brutal, heart-wrenching story that feels so close to reality...A tale of survival and resistance in an unfair prison system. * Cosmopolitan *
[A] blazing debut novel...A damning indictment of mass incarceration, systemic racism, and the grotesqueries of unfettered American capitalism, Chain-Gang All-Stars is also a breathless dystopian thriller. * Lit Hub *
In a narrative world where the real is growingly more unbelievable than the make believe, Chain-Gang All-Stars is an uncanny, singular feat for literature. I've never read satire so bruising, so brolic, so tender and, really, so pitch-perfect. It's nuts brilliant. Just read it! -- Kiese Laymon, author of HEAVY: An American Memoir
As vital as it is brutal. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah illuminates darkness with the electricity of his prose. The massive weight of the subject is matched by the sheer scope of Adjei-Brenyah's imagination. A startling, important novel that will inspire and inform many conversations. -- Charles Yu, author of INTERIOR CHINATOWN
[A] ferocious debut novel...Adjei-Brenyah does not flinch. Neither does he miss his targets, because he has the stiff winds of history at his back...With Chain-Gang All-Stars he lets us think we're reading a satire, but soon reveals a mirror of our dystopian days that lie not too far away. * Boston Globe *
A complex, brutal, beautiful, panoramic takedown of the prison-industrial complex... At once original, its own fresh creation, and clearly part of a lineage of American literature that links the opening 'Battle Royal' chapter in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man to Native Son by Richard Wright, Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver and Soledad Brother by George Jackson... Adjei-Brenyah's distinguished novel updates this tradition to encompass our dizzying, barbaric, performative and capitalistic digital age. * Minneapolis Star Tribune *
With his sharp eye for satire and reverence for humanity, Adjei-Brenyah's latest explores the exploitation, violence, and false promises of the prison industrial complex, capitalism, and the country itself. * The Millions *
A chillingly dystopian tale. * Culture Whisper *
A clear-eyed critique of our country's prison system, along with the profit and racism inherent in them. * Salon *
At once a kaleidoscopic, imaginative examination of America's unjust prison system, and a fantasy-tinged spectacle, Chain-Gang All-Stars is likely to excite and provoke in equal measure. * Our Culture *
A searing debut with an unforgettable voice, Chain Gang All-Stars will force you to reevaluate what freedom in America really means. * Lit-Reactor *
It is an up-to-the-minute j'accuse that speaks to the eternal question of what it truly means to be free. And human. Imagine The Hunger Games refashioned into a rowdy, profane, and indignant blues shout at full blast. * Kirkus *
Breathtaking and pulse-pounding... Both the political allegory and the edge-of-your-seat action work beautifully. Readers will be wowed. * Publishers Weekly *
An incredible feat * Daily Mail *
