The 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been announced, and Jamaica now has its first Booker Prize winner in Marlon James. Congratulations to Mr. James on the epic achievement. For those not familiar with the Booker (as it used to be called), it’s kind of like the Nobel Prize for Fiction rolled into an Academy Award.
As per the Man Booker website, here’s a description of a book that looks very intriguing:
On 3 December 1976, just weeks before the general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica concert to ease political tensions, seven men from West Kingston stormed his house with machine guns. Marley survived and went on to perform at the free concert. But the next day he left the country and didn’t return for two years.
Inspired by this near-mythic event, A Brief History of Seven Killings takes the form of an imagined oral biography, told by ghosts, witnesses, killers, members of parliament, drug dealers, conmen, beauty queens, FBI and CIA agents, reporters, journalists, and even Keith Richards’ drug dealer. The story traverses strange landscapes and shady characters, as motivations are examined – and questions asked.
If you’re curious about past winners and which of these former Booker winners you’ve read, click here.
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Richard H. Harris 