LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2015.
Set against the backdrop of 1970s reggae culture, disco, sex and excess comes this remarkable re-imagining of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley. 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.
Michael Wood, Chair of the Man Booker 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.’
Click here to see a special hardback edition of this book.
Click here to see John Crow's Devil by the same author.
Read our 'Book-aneers of the Caribbean' listicle to find more unforgettable books by Caribbean writers.
Head to our 'Black Lit Matters' list to find more must-read novels by black writers.
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A Brief History of Seven Killings Synopsis
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 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, one-night stands, drug lords, girlfriends, gunmen, journalists, and even the CIA.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD AND SELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: WIRED GQ BBC CULTURE NEW YORK TIMES, Michiko Kakutani WASHINGTON POST ELECTRIC LITERATURE TIME PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AMAZON HUFFINGTON POST CHICAGO TRIBUNE NEWSWEEK WALL STREET JOURNAL HOUSTON CHRONICLE LIBRARY JOURNAL BOOKPAGE POPSUGAR BUZZFEED SALON, Laura Miller KANSAS CITY STAR L MAGAZINE SEATTLE TIMES BOSTON GLOBE
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Press Reviews
Marlon James Press Reviews
'A vivid plunge into a crazed, violent and corrupt world... executed with swaggering aplomb'
Irvine Welsh
'Scary and lyrically beautiful - you'll want to read whole pages aloud to strangers.'
Russell Banks
'A brilliant novel'
Library Journal
'Marlon James's writing can be at once at once punchy and lyrical; can alternate strange, dreamy poetry with visceral action; and can bring persuasive life to a kaleidoscopic range of characters. [This book] showcases the extraordinary capabilities of a writer whose importance can scarcely be questioned'
Independent
'Not only persuasive, but tragic, though in its polyphony and scope it's more than that ... the book's increasing sense of absurdity, its pop culture references, its compulsive ventriloquism and its range of tones - comic, surreal, nightmarish, parodic - began to remind me uncannily of David Foster Wallace's all-or-nothing Infinite Jest.'
New York Times Book Review
'It's like a Tarantino remake of The Harder They Come but with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a script by Oliver Stone and William Faulkner...epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex.'
New York Times
'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
'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
'[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
'This tense and violent, but very compelling, novel is a big book in more ways than one.'
The Herald
Author
About Marlon James
Marlon James was born in Kingston, Jamaica. John Crow’s Devil is his debut novel, published in North America in 2005 to widespread acclaim. It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. His second novel, The Book of Night Women (Oneworld 2009), won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Minnesota Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His third novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld 2014) won the American Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and featured in over twenty best books of the year lists. His short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Esquire and Granta. He teaches at Macalester College, Minnesota, USA.
Author photo © Jeffrey Skemp
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