‘The Disappearers’: Marlon James’s new novel gives voice to the gay men Jamaica erased

Marlon James’s 2026 novel, The Disappearers, has already been hailed as the novel of the century by The New York Times, and it is certainly magnificent and explosive in equal measure. Its success lies in the way its artistic execution dovetails with its highly charged subject matter.

The Disappearers pulls the reader into a seemingly knowable time and place – the Jamaica of 1988 to 2005. Yet what James seeks to make known and felt is not to be found in any record or archive. Focusing on the experiences of men who love, desire, and have sex with men in a virulently homophobic Jamaican society, this is a novel that explores a silenced history with astonishing depth and detail.

In my own work, I have published literary criticism that argues for the Caribbean as a constitutively queer, as well as a homophobic, space and I found The Disappearers to be a powerful literary reckoning with this hidden past. It strives to bear witness to the harm done to young and old men, with the damage inflicted on masculinity, with the volatile entanglements of vulnerability and exploitation, and with the ferocity and survival of queer intimacy. All of this in a city and a time where dancehall lyrics, AIDS, and evangelical sermons created a...

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