Hangman, Maya Binyam
Hangman, Maya Binyam
List: $18.99 | Sale: $13.29
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Hangman
A Novel

Author: Maya Binyam

Narrator: Ronnie Butler

Unabridged: 6 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/08/2023


Synopsis

An enthralling and original first novel about exile, diaspora, and the impossibility of Black refuge in America and beyond.
In the morning, I received a phone call and was told to board a flight. The arrangements had been made on my behalf. I packed no clothes, because my clothes had been packed for me. A car arrived to pick me up.
A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn’t recognize the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone recognizes him, a man who calls him brother—setting him on a quest to find his real brother, who is dying.
In Hangman, Maya Binyam tells the story of that search, and of the phantoms, guides, tricksters, bureaucrats, debtors, taxi drivers, relatives, riddles, and strangers that will lead to the truth.
It is an uncommonly assured debut: an existential journey; a tragic farce; a slapstick tragedy; and a strange, and strangely honest, story of one man’s stubborn quest to find refuge—in this world and in the world that lies beyond it.

Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on June 23, 2025

is there a theme more bittersweet and stirring than the idea that you never can go home again? this book conveys that and about a million other striking things and is surreal the whole time. this reminded me of outline: filled with a lot of intelligent dialogue and interiority, expanding on themes de......more

Goodreads review by Lark on July 11, 2023

Original, startling, captivating, hypnotic. The closest reading experience I can think of to this book is REMAINDER by Tom McCarthy--the same disorientation, the same need for me as a reader to pay absolute attention and to not allow my focus to waver or I'll drop the thread, the same wild leaps out......more

Goodreads review by Peter on April 01, 2024

Have you ever looked at the reviews around here and thought: "Hmmm, I must have been reading a different book to everybody else." This novel has been praised to the hilt and the people that love it, really love it. And yet I got precious little out of it. What's wrong with me? The unnamed narrator, a......more

Goodreads review by Yahaira on October 06, 2023

Possibly my favorite narrator ever -- 10/6 I can't believe this is a debut. Maya Binyam’s book is one of my favorite reads this year, with one of the most unique and slightly odd (and definitely reluctant) narrators I’ve ever encountered. This is an offbeat, absurdist, spare, and smart book. It’s decep......more

Goodreads review by Ruben on October 14, 2023

A very original novel, with a unique narrative voice that keeps you guessing what on earth is going on. A man is being put in a plane back to his home country after 26 years of exile. He presumes the reason for the trip is that he is expected to visit his sick brother. But is it? I enjoyed it not only......more