Research Guides (LibGuides): Visiting Writers' Series LibGuide: Marlon James

Marlon James

Marlon James by Simon Levy under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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INTERVIEWS

Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings
Here's another video interview. This one is for the Chicago Humanities Festival.
In Conversation with Marlon James
This is an interview with Midnight Breakfast, a free online literary magazine.
Violently Wrought: Kaitlyn Greenidge interviews Marlon James
"The author of A Brief History of Seven Killings on Bob Marley, writing terror explicitly, and why sloppiness serves good storytelling."

PODCASTS

A History In Seven Killings: Marlon James (2016)
This is a podcast recording from the Auckland Writers Festival.
An evening with Marlon James - books podcast
"Gangs, gay sex and pandering to the white woman. Man Booker prize winner Marlon James talks to Guardian books editor, Claire Armitstead, and answers audience questions at a Guardian Live event on A Brief History of Seven Killings"
18: Marlon James and Reading Your Own Audio Book
"Sherman and Jess are back with an interview with acclaimed novelist Marlon James, whose most recent book is A Brief History of Seven Killings. The guys also talk about the pros and cons of reading their own audio books."

Many works by our Visiting Writers' Series authors are pulled from their normal places on the shelves and temporarily located in a special display in the Browsing Collection. This collection is located near the Information Commons service desk, next to the vending machines and newspapers.

When you look at an item's record in WorldCat Discovery, be sure to note whether the items is in the General Stacks (mostly 2nd floor) or the Browsing Collection (1st floor). If you have any questions about locating an item on the shelf, don't hesitate to ask us!

Remember - if we don't own it or our copy is currently checked out, you probably can still get a copy through PALShare or interlibrary loan! Learn more.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
"In A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James combines masterful storytelling with his unrivaled skill at characterization and his meticulous eye for detail to forge a novel of dazzling ambition and scope.

On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions in Kingston, seven unnamed gunmen stormed the singer’s house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little was officially released about the gunmen, but rumors abounded regarding the assassins’ fates. A Brief History of Seven Killings is James’s fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica’s history and beyond. Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters—assassins, drug dealers, journalists, and even ghosts—James brings to life the people who walked the streets of 1970s Kingston, who dominated the crack houses of 1980s New York, and who reemerged into a radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s. Brilliantly inventive, A Brief History of Seven Killings is an “exhilarating” (The New York Times) epic that’s been called “a tour de force” (The Wall Street Journal)." - Amazon description
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
"A true triumph of voice and storytelling, The Book of Night Women rings with both profound authenticity and a distinctly contemporary energy. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they- and she-will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings, desires, and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link. But the real revelation of the book-the secret to the stirring imagery and insistent prose-is Marlon James himself, a young writer at once breathtakingly daring and wholly in command of his craft." - Amazon description
John Crow's Devil by Marlon James
"This stunning debut novel tells the story of a biblical struggle in a remote Jamaican village in 1957 with language as taut as classic works by Cormac McCarthy and a richness reminiscent of early Toni Morrison." - Amazon description

"Marlon James attained a notable literary first in 2015 when the Jamaican-born novelist became the first writer from his country to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize. Honored for his third novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings,James impressed the Booker Prize jury and reviewers alike with a sprawling, cinematic chronicle of Jamaica in the mid-1970s. The plot of the 688-page work is anchored by a real-life assassination attempt on reggae star Bob Marley. "I love my country to death but I also remember how much of our history is paid for in blood," James told New York Times writer Alexandra Alter. "Were I in Jamaica, I would not have written this novel."

In that interview with the New York Times James mentioned his decision to seek a teaching job in the United States, which happened in his mid-thirties. Uncomfortable with living openly as a gay man in Jamaica, he eventually settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he has taught literature and creative writing at Macalester College since 2007. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1970, James grew up in middle-class comfort in suburban Portmore. Both of his parents began their careers in law enforcement, with his father eventually becoming a criminal defense attorney and his mother a police detective. There were several children in the family, including some half-siblings from relationships his father conducted outside the marriage. This was not an unusual circumstance, as James wrote in a 2015 essay for the New York Times Magazine: When James worked in the advertising industry in Kingston, "every man in the office had a woman on the side, whether he was married or not, and even monogamous men were considered gay," James wrote."

Source: "Marlon James." Newsmakers, vol. 1, Gale, 2016. Biography in Context. Web. 8 November 2016.

Literary Sources This link opens in a new window
Use the author's name or one of his primary texts in the search box to find reviews and criticism of his work.

New York Times Book Review
This link will take you to the New York Times Book Review hosted on the Literature Resource Center database. It includes issues from 2001 to present. You can search within the entire publication (box at top of page) or you can select a specific year from the drop-down menu. Older issues are available via other databases - ask a librarian for help accessing these issues.
Library Journal Book Review
Click on the Library Journal link (use the one that has more full texts available) to access it through the Butler library. Use the author's name as your search term in the "search within the publication" box to find reviews of his work.

Visiting Writers' Series LibGuide: Marlon James

Marlon James

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