In a dazzling display of masterful storytelling, Marlon James explores the extraordinary backstory to the attempted assassination of Bob Marley.
By Marlon James
The Man Booker Prize 2015
Marlon James receives his prize
A rich winning book narrated in West Indian patois with bouts of poetry, and 75 characters – both living and dead – chipping in. Marlon James became the first Jamaican to win the prize
A Brief History of Seven Killings is a story of Bob Marley (or ‘The Singer’ as he is termed), a botched assassination, drugs, violence, gangs, swearing, reggae and the CIA. The chair of judges, Michael Wood, confessed that the choice of winner wasn’t put to a vote, because: ‘as we talked certain books seemed further away… and then it dawned on us, this was the book’.
On winning, the sartorially-minded James said: ‘I can go to Gieves & Hawkes, finally get my Ozwald Boateng suit.’
Winner The Booker Prize 2015
- By
- Marlon James
- Published by
- Oneworld Publications
In a dazzling display of masterful storytelling, Marlon James explores the extraordinary backstory to the attempted assassination of Bob Marley.
The shortlist
Tom McCarthy’s strange and elusive vision of a Kafkaesque world in contemporary London, where a company man begins to think for himself…
By Tom McCarthy
Chigozie Obioma combines classic African storytelling with contemporary fiction in this haunting fable suffused with supernatural power.
Sunjeev Sahota's brilliant political novel explores the dreams and struggles of an unlikely household in a warm celebration of the human spirit.
Anne Tyler’s narrative spools back through three generations of Whitshanks, revealing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that shape a family.
By Anne Tyler
Hanya Yanagihara’s deft depiction of heartbreak becomes a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance.
