Brief History of Seven Killings

Author(s): Marlon James

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Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2015. Jamaica, 1976- Seven men storm Bob Marley's house with machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but leaves Jamaica the following day, not to return for two years. Inspired by this near-mythic event, A Brief History of Seven Killings is 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' dazzling novel is a tour de force. It traverses strange landscapes and shady characters, as motivations are examined - and questions asked - in a masterpiece of imagination.

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Man Booker WINNER 2015

An explicit and unforgiving look at the political and cultural life of Jamaica in the 1970s. Revolving around the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, Marlon James’ Man Booker prize-winning novel is not one for the faint-hearted Sam, The Book Grocer   '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

Marlon James was born in Jamaica. He is the author of The Book of Night Women, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His first novel, John Crow's Devil, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He teaches at Macalester College, Minnesota, USA

General Fields

  • : 9781780746357
  • : Bloomsbury
  • : bloomsbury
  • : 0.52
  • : April 2015
  • : 198mm X 129mm X 39mm
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Marlon James
  • : Paperback
  • : English
  • : 813/.6
  • : 704
  • : FA