Marlon James became the first Jamaican Author to win the prestigious Booker Prize for his book “A Brief History of Seven Killings”.  James was awarded the 50,000 pound prize during a black-tie dinner at London’s medieval Guildhall. The 44-year-old author said he almost gave up writing more than a decade ago when his first novel, “John Crow’s Devil,” was rejected by 70 publishers. He said winning the Booker Prize was “surreal,” and joked that he would spend the prize money on a tailor-made suit or “every William Faulkner novel in hardcover.”

“A Brief History of Seven Killings” charts political violence in Jamaica and the spread of crack cocaine in the US, and hinges on a 1976 attempt on the life of reggae superstar Marley — identified in the book only as “The Singer.” The story is told in a cacophony of voices — from gangsters to ghosts, drug dealers to CIA agents — and in dialects ranging from American English to Jamaican patois.

James beat five other authors, including two Americans: Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Tyler, for the multi-generational family saga “A Spool of Blue Thread,” and Hawaiian writer Hanya Yanagihara for “A Little Life,” the story of four male friends, one of whom is a survivor of horrific child abuse.

The other finalists were British writer Sunjeev Sahota’s immigrants’ story “The Year of the Runaways”; the fratricide fable “The Fishermen,” by Nigeria’s Chigozie Obioma; and British writer Tom McCarthy’s digital drama “Satin Island.”

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