Greeted as a masterpiece when it was published in 1967, this novl stakes out a range of experience rarely seen in American fiction: from the life of a Black GI to the ferment of postcolonial Africa to an insider’s view of Washington politics in the era of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement, including fictionalized portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. Few novels have so deliberately blurred the boundaries between fiction and reality as this, and many of its early readers assumed the King Alfred plan was real. In her introduction, Merve Emre examines the gonzo marketing plan behind the novel that fuelled this confusion and prompted an FBI investigation.