Chain-Gang All-Stars

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Enter a world where, watched by millions, prisoners fight like gladiators for the ultimate prize: their freedom. Perfect for fans of The Handmaid's Tale, Squid Game and Watchmen

**A MOST ANTICIPATED TITLE OF 2023 from The Independent, Elle, The Millions, Salon, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Huffington Post, Oprah Daily, The Week, Book Riot, Lit-Reactor, Goodreads, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus AND MANY MORE**

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?

*Roxane Gay's May Selection for the Audacious Book Club*

'Electrifying' GEORGE SAUNDERS
'Awe-inspiring' JESSAMINE CHAN
'A revelation!' TOMMY ORANGE

©2023 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah(P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • An exuberant circus of a novel, action-packed and expansive…fuelled by a sense of thrilling, righteous rage.

    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.

    Guardian

  • Adjei-Brenyah is clearly a writer of substance, with something to say.

    Observer

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