Have you been sentenced to a life in prison? Are you looking for a way out? In this dystopian debut novel, Adjei-Brenyah provides the brutal answer… gladiator-style death matches. If you stay alive for three years, you are granted your freedom.

Naturally, this is a controversial plan.  The spectacle of violence, beautifully rendered and oddly tender, is an eye-opening lens thought which the reader can explore the suffocating sickness that is incarceration. The story examines the idea from all sides through the hypocrisy and confusion of its characters, and American history in terribly relevant footnotes.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a biting satire about the United States’ private prison industry, consumer culture, and systemic racism, but is also a highly compelling and honest depiction of love and sisterhood. – Liv