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The Disappearers
  • Published: 3 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9781405969789
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 512

The Disappearers

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EBook
3 Sept 2026
Audiobook
3 Sept 2026
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From Booker Prize–winning author Marlon James, a propulsive novel about the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its tragic consequences

‘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: 3 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9781405969789
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 512
Categories:

About the author

Marlon James

Marlon James is the author of the New York Times bestselling Moon Witch, Spider King; the Sunday Times bestselling, National Book Award-finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf; the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings; 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 Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Born in Jamaica, Marlon James now lives in New York City.
MJ

Also by Marlon James

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

Praise for The Disappearers

This seething, hot, violent, action-packed novel is enormous in every sense. The ambition is huge, but [James] pulls it off with huge style, confidence, imagination and wit . . . Extraordinary

The Times, 'Praise for A Brief History of Seven Killings'

The way James uses language is amazing . . . Vigorous, intricate and captivating, [it] is hard to put down

Ebony, 'Praise for A Brief History of Seven Killings'

Extraordinary . . . James’s writing can be at once punchy and lyrical; can alternate strange, dreamy poetry with visceral action; and can bring persuasive life to a kaleidoscopic range of characters

Independent, 'Praise for A Brief History of Seven Killings'

A vivid plunge into a crazed, violent and corrupt world . . . executed with swaggering aplomb. The most original novel I’ve read in years

Irvine Welsh, 'Praise for A Brief History of Seven Killings'

Epic in every sense of that word’

New York Times, 'Praise for A Brief History of Seven Killings'