'Epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex.'
A Brief History of Seven Killings
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2015
Marlon James*WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2015*
A Book of the Decade, 2010-2020 (Independent)
JAMAICA, 1976
Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley’s house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but the gunmen are never caught.
From the acclaimed author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf and The Book of Night Women comes a dazzling display of masterful storytelling exploring this near-mythic event. Spanning three decades and crossing continents, A Brief History of Seven Killings chronicles the lives of a host of unforgettable characters – slum kids, drug lords, journalists, prostitutes, gunmen and even the CIA. Gripping and inventive, ambitious and mesmerising, A Brief History of Seven Killings is one of the most remarkable and extraordinary novels of the twenty-first century.
Reviews
New York Times
'A truly remarkable novel, crammed with a multitude of narrative voices, leaping across continents, reeking of sweat and gunpowder, slick with blood…As bold as literature can be'.
GQ
'Violent, lurid, scabrous, hilarious and beautiful, this novel teems with life, death and narrators. A deserving winner of...the Man Booker prize by the first Jamaican to carry off the award'.
Economist Books of the Year 2015
‘Showcases the extraordinary capabilities of a writer whose importance can scarcely be questioned.’
Independent
'A vast, ambitious, burning mansion of a book, designed to reflect all the languages of its teeming island and the chambers of the human heart'
Irish Independent
‘A vivid plunge into a crazed, violent and corrupt world... executed with swaggering aplomb’
Irvine Welsh
'[James's] talent has grown from book to book, and his imagination consistently shines a light on dark and gory places...this is a work that explores the aesthetics of cacophony and also the aesthetics of violence.'
Guardian
'Resembles James Ellroy's LA Quartet in its blistering violence, multiple voices and view of history "from the gutter to the star"'
The Daily Telegraph
'Critics rave about James’ mastery of both oral history storytelling and patois dialect, and his ability to craft and juggle perspectives that often contradict and obscure the truth. With comparisons to the works of David Foster Wallace and Quentin Tarantino, James has garnered the highest of contemporary praise.'
Wired 10 Best Books of 2014
'This tense and violent, but very compelling, novel is a big book in more ways than one.'
The Herald
'A brilliant novel'
Library Journal
‘Scary and lyrically beautiful - you'll want to read whole pages aloud to strangers.’
Russell Banks
Marlon James
Marlon James was born in Jamaica. He is the author of John Crow’s Devil (Oneworld, 2015), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and The Book of Night Women (Oneworld, 2009), which won the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction. His third novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld 2014), won the Man Booker Prize in 2015, the American Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize, and was a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Esquire and Granta. He is currently the Writer-in-Residence and Associate Professor of English at Macalester College, Minnesota, USA.
Author page
