Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Disclaimer: I did not read the book but listened to the audiobook (with a brilliant narrator), and I'm not sure I'd have made it through if I'd read it due to the horrendously and powerfully graphic violence in this. Yes, I admit I might be squeamish. Yes, I had to turn the audiobook off and take a break after various torture scenes because the narrator was being too realistic for my poor mind.

That said, let me reiterate that the comparison to ASoIaF is uncalled-for, and honestly unfair - at least from the point of view of somebody who didn't particularly enjoy most of that unfinished [censored].
For one thing, the female characters in this book are powerful and cunning - though, admittedly, often on the fiendishly evil side of things. And the male main/narrator character, Tracker, usually gets the short end of the stick in conflicts there. Personally, I do appreciate capable female villains (which possibly is the main reason for my eternal disappointment in Cersei), and I like it when ruthlessness isn't attributed to one gender only. Here, everybody gets to be successfully wicked.

I'd also like to focus on Tracker himself for a moment whose mysogenistic world view becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy to haunt his existence up until the point when he faces it for what it really is, in his case: the lingering disappointment and distrust of a child due to unresolved issues with his mother. This actually becomes a topic in the context of the brief period in which Tracker is actually allowed by the author to experience happiness and fulfillment. The quest (which is the main plot of the book, but only starts a good while in) seemed almost as much a quest for identity and belonging for him as it is the classical "future of the kingdom/world" trope of fantasy literature. Tracker also is the "red wolf" of the title - given a wolf-eye by a sangoma after having lost one eye to hyenas after a friend betrays him, he has a nose and uses (and is used for) this to find the lost for money; red because of the red earth used as "body painting" by the people he hails from. And he definitely has anger-management-issues.
The other part of the title is, surprisingly, the Leopard - a black one. There's no other name given, and he is, after all, a leopard who has the ability to take human form. The friendship dynamics of the two eponymic characters are complicated, not purely for intrinsic reasons, but the bond is undeniably strong. So much so that the Leopard dies in the end, trying to help Tracker despite having been on opposing sides merely moments before. Surprisingly, he often almost acts as a comic relief despite his importance.

The language of the characters varies strongly according to what kind of formal education and/or intellectual capacities are attributed to them. And also according to their position in this society. There is, as in many novels of the "writing back" tradition with oppressors and oppressed, a language of the powerful and one of the powerless. It is a powerful characterization tool, and far too seldom-used, especially in such less "academic" genres as fantasy.

There are many more topics that are dealt with within the narration without being shoved in in an unnatural way (gender-roles, what makes a man a man, and many others), and there seems to be a lot of controversy around this book with people either celebrating it or completely rejecting it, and no middle ground. I won't go into either of these things because this would get annoyingly long.

Lastly, I want to praise the narrator of the audiobook again. This is the first time ever I had the experience of one single person giving characters different voices without the characters sounding far too alike after all, or it being just silly.

This is a very good book.

Like most good books, it is a weaving.

Set in an imaginary "Africa" before the European came - their arrival is foreshadowed - it is the story of a quest, undertaken by a young man who is simply known as tracker. He recounts his story to an inquisitor who, we understand, holds the man's life in his hands. If he is to remain alive, he must tell his stories. The stories are fantastical, full of occult beasts and various modes of UnDead. They may be pure invention, a psychotic fantasy designed to detract from a sordid history of infanticide and rape.

The book is not for the faint-hearted. We are down in Sade's dungeons where the odour is foul and rank. The tracker is gifted - or cursed - with a supernatural sense of smell, and most of what he smells is bad. There are many acts of violence and cruelty. This is not a nursery fairy-tale.