Hangman

An existential journey, a tragic farce, a slapstick tragedy: a shockingly original debut novel about exile, diaspora and the search for Black refugeA man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years living in exile in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn't recognize the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone at the airport knows him-a man who calls him brother. As they travel to this man's house, the purpose of his visit comes into focus: he is here to find his real brother, who is dying.In Hangman, Maya Binyam tells the story of this twisted odyssey, and of the phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and taxi drivers, the relatives, riddles and strangers that lead this man along a circuitous path towards the truth. Hangman is an uncommonly assured debut: a strangely honest story of one man's stubborn search for refuge-in this world and the one that lies beyond it.

Maya Binyam's work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, New York, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor at the Paris Review and has previously worked as an editor at Triple Canopy and the New Inquiry, and as a lecturer in the New School's Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program. Hangman is her debut novel.