Beasts of Prey (novel)
2021 young adult fantasy novel by Ayana Gray
Beasts of Prey is a 2021 young adult fantasy novel by American writer Ayana Gray. Gray's debut novel follows two teenagers, Koffi and Ekon, who enter the magical Greater Jungle in pursuit of a murderous creature called the Shetani. It was published on September 28, 2021, and quickly entered the New York Times and Indie Bestseller lists.
Development
Ayana Gray has stated that she came up with the idea for the novel while studying political violence in college. A few months later she went on a study programme in Ghana, where she stated that she felt happy to connect with her African heritage. In an interview, she said:
"I left Ghana and knew I wanted to write a story in which Black people had the opportunity to be both magical and nuanced."
Gray began writing the novel, drawing from various folklores of Africa for most of the beasts in the book, immediately after graduating from the University of Arkansas. She worked on the manuscript between 2015 and 2019. She presented the novel to literary agents at #DVPit, a Twitter pitching event. After connecting with an agent, they both revised the draft for a year before submitting it to editors where it was eventually purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in a seven-figure deal.
Reception
The novel became a New York Times Bestseller shortly after publication.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Beasts of Prey (novel)” as 2021 young adult fantasy novel by Ayana Gray. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q109567638. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 2015 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Beasts of Prey (novel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.