Marlon James

Marlon James was born to an upper middle class family in Kingston. His mother was a police officer and detective, and his father a lawyer. He was a child when Bob Marley (“the Singer”) was shot, and remembers the occasion as one of the only times in his life when his parents seemed truly frightened. James graduated with a BA from the University of the West Indies in 1991 and later gained an MFA from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania in 2006. In between this time James immigrated from Jamaica to the United States, partly due to the threat of homophobic violence, and also because of the limited professional and economic opportunities available in his home country. James’ first novel, John Crow’s Delight, was published in 2005; his second, The Book of Night Women, in 2009. The Book of Night Women garnered positive reviews and several awards, but this was dwarfed by the success of A Brief History of Seven Killings, which was awarded the 2015 Man Booker prize (alongside other awards) and is set to be adapted for the screen by HBO. James lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he teaches literature and creative writing at Macalester College.