A 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.

Hangman is his tragicomic journey through homecoming and loss. It is a hilarious and twisted odyssey, peopled by phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and taxi drivers, the relatives and riddles that lead this man along a circuitous path towards the truth. This is the strangely honest story of one man's search for refuge-in this world and the one that lies beyond it.