Marlon James became the first
Jamaican winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction
Tuesday with a vivid, violent, exuberant and expletive-laden
novel based on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley.
Michael Wood, chairman of the judging panel, said "A Brief
History of Seven Killings" was "the most exciting book on the
list" and a novel full of the "sheer pleasure" of language. He
said it had been the unanimous choice of the five judges.
James was awarded the 50,000 pound ($77,000) prize during a
black-tie dinner at London's medieval Guildhall. The
44-year-old author said he almost gave up writing more than a
decade ago when his first novel, "John Crow's Devil," was
rejected by 70 publishers. He said winning the Booker Prize
was "surreal," and joked that he would spend the prize money
on a tailor-made suit or "every William Faulkner novel in
hardcover."
He said he hoped his victory would bring "more attention to
what's coming out of Jamaica and the Caribbean, because I
think there are some brand-new voices coming out who are
exploring contemporary society, who are exploring what's
beyond politics, what's beyond colonialism."
"A Brief History of Seven Killings" charts political
violence in Jamaica and the spread of crack cocaine in the U.S.,
and hinges on a 1976 attempt on the life of reggae superstar
Marley - identified in the book only as "The Singer." The
story is told in a cacophony of voices - from gangsters to
ghosts, drug dealers to CIA agents - and in dialects ranging
from American English to Jamaican patois.
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