On Tuesday 13 October the Man Booker Prize for 2015 was announced.
This years winner was 44-year-old Marlon James from Jamaica (now living in Minneapolis, USA). He is the first writer from Jamaica to win the prize in its 47 year history.
His book A Brief History of Seven Killings is a fictional history, an imagined biography of the singer Bob Marley, and the events surrounding an attempted assassination in 1976. Crediting Charles Dickens as one of his former influences, here in his 686 page epic, James pulls together a band of characters:
from witnesses and FBI and CIA agents to killers, ghosts, beauty queens and Keith Richards’ drug dealer – to create a rich, polyphonic study of violence, politics and the musical legacy of Kingston of the 1970s
Michael Wood, Chair of the judges, commented:
‘This book is startling in its range of voices and registers, running from the patois of the street posse to The Book of Revelation. It is a representation of political times and places, from the CIA intervention in Jamaica to the early years of crack gangs in New York and Miami.
‘It is a crime novel that moves beyond the world of crime and takes us deep into a recent history we know far too little about. It moves at a terrific pace and will come to be seen as a classic of our times.’
It sounds like a riveting pageturner, with its cast of over 75 characters and voices. I haven’t read the book, but I’ve requested my local library buy it. Here is what a few reviewers have had to say:
Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times – Booker winner Marlon James tops Tarantino for body count
Reading Marlon’s prose is akin to injecting liquid fire into your brain.
Kei Miller, The Guardian – bloody conflicts in 70s Jamaica
tendency to inhabit the dark and gory places, and to shine a light on them
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times – Jamaica via a Sea of Voices
raw, dense, violent, scalding, darkly comic, exhilarating and exhausting
Have you read it yet? Or planning to?
Word by Word 
I haven’t actually read any of them yet but I intend to read them all!
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Well done Linda, I’ve only read one but am particularly drawn to writers from elsewhere, so this one definitely looks interesting.
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I am planning to, because it’s crime fiction, which is my favourite genre (and because I love a breaking of the boundaries between literary and genre fiction).
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Good pont Marina, it’s great to see different genres busting onto the book prize shortlists. This one sounds like it includes a bit of historical fiction too. I wonder how soon this will be made into a feature film, it certainly has great potential.
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I gather that much of the book is in Jamaican patois – and it was refused by over 70 publishers before finally being accepted! Encouraging for all those would-be authors in a similar position! Sounds like something for the long winter evenings, and a Jamaican dictionary at hand!
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Actually, James mentions in interviews that it was his first book, John Crow’s Devil, that had been rejected so many times. I must’ve read the same articles you’d read that talk about that and I got confused as well, until I did some digging. Either way, very glad James won. Very well deserved. Happy reading!
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Thanks for putting me right. Glad you did the research and saved me the bother 🙂
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This sounds like a good choice for the winner- so happy for him! I’m hoping to read it at some point…
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Sounds like the crime book of the century and more. powerful.Congrats to Marlon. I dare say he has made history! 🙂
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I loved this book and really wanted it to win (I even called it when the short-list was announced and blogged about how worried I was that my enthusiasm would jinx it because I’m always wrong when it comes to guessing winners). Completely deserved and one of my books of 2015!
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Nice to know that Marlon James is the first Jamaican author to win the Booker. It is so wonderful. I am a bit disappointed though – I was hoping that Hanya Yanagihara’s ‘A Little Life’ would win. I am reading it now and it is a chunkster, but it is wonderful – every page is a delight. I haven’t read a book like this in a long, long time – I want to linger on every page, every line and read my favourite passages again and again before turning the page. I don’t know how long it will take to finish it, but I am enjoying it. I hope it wins a prize sometime – any prize. Otherwise, because of its size, it might be forgotten a few months from now. It is a book which deserves to be read by a wider readership. Having said that, Congratulations to Marlon James 🙂
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I’d like to read A Little Life, too. If you’re planning to write about it on your blog I’ll look forward to reading what you think!
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I will likely read it, sounds amazing. Most certainly it sounds like my son’s kind of book, I think he’d love it. Thank you for the post, Claire.
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It sounds great and 704 pages long, a real epic, it’s on my list too.
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I hope you review it, I’m looking forward to finding out how it reads.
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I ended up picking it up two days ago and 102 pages in, I am really enjoying it so far.
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Excellent, look forward to your thoughts on it!
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