A Brief History of Seven Killings: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE - Hardcover

James, Marlon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1780745877 ISBN 13: 9781780745879

Publisher: Oneworld Publications, 2014

Synopsis

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 gunmen from West Kingston stormed his house with machine guns blazing. 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. Not much was recorded about the fate of the seven gunmen, but much has been said, whispered and sung about in the streets of West Kingston, with information surfacing at odd times, only to sink into rumour and misinformation. 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. Marlon James s bold undertaking traverses strange landscapes and shady characters, as motivations are examined and questions asked in this compelling novel of monumental scope and ambition.

About this title

Review:

BOOKS OF THE DECADE (2019)

‘A nightmare symphony of crime that begins in 1970s Jamaica and never really leaves, even as the semi-historical plot leaves a surreal blood trail from a Bob Marley assassination attempt to crack-addled New York City. James’ intoxicating prose is relentless, feverishly up-close inside his characters’ rattled nerves even as the narrative scope widens into an evocative portrait of the author’s native Kingston’

(Darren Franich Entertainment Weekly)

'Vast and vastly ambitious... much to admire... fascinating... the author's imaginative and stylistic range are impressive'

(Sunday Times)

'If the scope of James’s talent has grown from book to book, his imagination is more consistent – that tendency to inhabit the dark and gory places, and to shine a light on them... When reading reviews of Night Women, James apparently became bored with comparisons to Toni Morrison; and with A Brief History, he’s got bored with comparisons to Quentin Tarantino. But it is hard not to see the strength of that comparison. This is a novel that explores the aesthetics of cacophony and also the aesthetics of violence'

(Guardian)

'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, with maybe a little creative boost from some primo ganja. It’s epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex. It’s also raw, dense, violent, scalding, darkly comic, exhilarating and exhausting ― a testament to Mr. James’s vaulting ambition and prodigious talent.'

(Michiko Kakutani New York Times)

‘[A Brief History of Seven Killings] is 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)

‘Vast and teeming ... a vivid novel that deserves all the praise it has received’ 

(Sunday Telegraph)

'Magnificent ... richly imagined... James has triumphed in capturing the tension, the politics, the heat, chaos, beauty and music of Jamaica'

(Financial Times)

‘Breaks new ground... a very fluid and superbly controlled work’

(Spectator)

‘The hottest name in Caribbean literature right now’ 

(GQ, best books of 2014)

‘This seething, hot, violent, action-packed novel is enormous in every sense...the ambition is huge, but [James] pulls it off with huge style, confidence, imagination and wit... Extraordinary’

(The Times)

About the Author:

Marlon James was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1970. He graduated from the University of the West Indies with a degree in literature. He currently teaches a creative writing course in Minnesota and is working on his next novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1780745877
• ISBN 13: 9781780745879
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 688