She felt their eyes, all those executioners...

Enter a world where, watched by millions, prisoners fight like gladiators for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2023

'The new maestro of dystopian lit has arrived' WIRED

'America's new Hunger Games' SUNDAY TIMES

'Criminally entertaining' GUARDIAN

Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars, the popular and highly controversial programme inside America's private prison system. In packed arenas, live-streamed by millions, 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?

'A pure fire page turner' MAX PORTER

'Electrifying' GEORGE SAUNDERS


READERS CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK OF 2023:

'I've waited my whole life for a sapphic Hunger Games!'

'An explosive page-turner that's also a chilling social commentary.'

'This novel is alive and glorious. Give it all the awards.'

'Had me cheering and weeping, unable to tear my eyes from the page.'

'A masterpiece that packs a mighty punch.'

About the Author
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.

Reviews
An exuberant circus of a novel, action-packed and expansive...fuelled by a sense of thrilling, righteous rage. -- Xan Brooks * Guardian *
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
A rumbustious satire of the criminal justice system, a book that is far more entertaining than an attempt to convince its readers of the case for prison abolition has any right to be. -- David Shariatmadari * Guardian *
Adjei-Brenyah is clearly a writer of substance, with something to say. * Observer *
Adjei-Brenyeh's sentences are nimble, his chapters brisk yet full of brio. He knows what he's doing, and it's this innate authority that makes Chain-Gang All-Stars so compelling - right up to the final, fatal blow * Sunday Telegraph *
Adjei-Brenyah's piercing satirical takedown on the current state of the US penal system is grimly funny, epically violent and - at times - surprisingly tender. Quite the ride. * Marie Claire *
We simply couldn't put it down... enthralling and engaging -- Leanne Fridd * The Times, * Bookseller Summer Reads of 2023* *
Brutal, thrilling, devastating and beautiful -- Amanda Truman * The Times, *Bookseller Summer Reads of 2023* *
Compelling... The range of different narrators provides a smart 360-degree perspective of the too-familiar society that demands murder for entertainment * SFX *
The new maestro of dystopian lit has arrived. * Wired *
While physical imprisonment - its degradations, its inefficacy - is central to this fantastically confident, nimble, entertaining and impassioned novel, Adjei-Brenyah is alert to more metaphorical and conceptual manifestations of incarceration, too. He ultimately asks us to reassess our tired, harmful thinking about what prison is really for. He demands that we imagine something better. -- Michael Donkor * TLS *
A hugely imaginative read - the world-building is masterful - while also making a powerful point about incarceration in America today...Unmissable. * Independent *
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. Readers will be forever changed by this book. -- Jessamine Chan, author of THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS
Terrific. A blistering exploration of a near future world that feels by turns bonkers and achingly prescient. -- Irenosen Okojie, author of NUDIBRANCH
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... [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 *
Deservedly acclaimed, Adjei-Brenyah is as commanding a storyteller as he is a world-builder. * Daily Mail *
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
Told with bold, muscular prose, this book is filled with surprising tenderness. As big as it is dazzling. It's 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 *
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] enthralling debut... An unmissable read * UK Press Syndication *
Adjei-Brenyah compels the reader to look beyond the page, blurring the lines between modern America and the hellscape he so energetically imagines * Economist *
[Adjei-Brenyah's] punch is as powerful as ever... [a] gripping story * Big Issue *



Book Information
ISBN 9781787303942
Author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Format Hardback
Page Count 384
Imprint Harvill Secker
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 611g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 162mm * 35mm