Marlon James: Another Brief History

Jamaican-born, raised in affluent suburb of Kingston, 'nerd... batty boy', moves to New York, graduates from a Pennsylvania university, first novel, deleted, Kaylie Jones' encouragement, rescues book, 78 rejections, published, asked to teach creative writing in Minnesota, second novel, comparison to Dickens, writes A Brief History Of Seven Killings, part written in patois, violent drug gangs, Bob Marley shot, acclaim, moving coming out essay in New York Times, Booker Prize, HBO adaptation, how do I end this thing, 'the rest is (a brief) history.'

The Sunday Times profile.

And if you don't know Marlon's story by heart by now you can read it all again in FT Weekend.

Marlon James Award: Best Man

Guardian.

Independent.

The discovery that John-John K was the originating voice casts the novel’s trajectory in fresh light. A gay hitman from Chicago, John-John K performs two crucial jobs, one of which is to help Weeper, a gay gangster who has moved to the US from Jamaica, to affirm a kind of peace with his sexuality. (James laughs when he says that this fourth part was the only one he vetoed his mother from reading.) When James started writing A Brief History, with John-John K as the main character, did he mean to write a “gay” novel?

“If I’m going to go by how the book really started, yes,” he says. “It was a gay hitman going through boyfriend troubles, trying to kill someone. When the overall architecture showed up, it made sense to me. All of those tricky sexualities, the things we do to get accepted, and the things we do that make us acceptable, I really wanted to talk about that.” He says A Brief History is “a novel of exile”. (He once described himself as “post-postcolonial” but now rejects that label because “it implies that whatever you’re doing, it’s the still-dominant context”.)

Weeper’s meanness eases as he learns to accept himself. “From the get-go he was a gay character. And not just a gay character,” James says. “When people talk about homosexuality, the perception of homosexuality itself is one thing, but then there’s the perception of the role you play. Are you the top, the bottom? Are you submissive? There’s always someone who’s doing it and a person who it’s being done to. I deliberately played with that.” ...

Guardian.

Interesting to see how Marlon's sexuality is being acknowledged as central to his story - usually concentrating on his flight from Jamaica - and to A Brief History Of Seven Killings.

PS Why Marlon James had to get out of Jamaica to win the Booker prize. A Brief History of Seven Killings breaks some very strong taboos – and its writer says he feared becoming a victim of homophobic rage, Guardian Cif.

Marlon James: Gay Man Booker Winner (Geddit?)

Marlon James has become the first Jamaican writer to win the Man Booker prize, taking the award for an epic, uncompromising novel not for the faint of heart. It brims with shocking gang violence, swearing, graphic sex, drug crime but also, said the judges, a lot of laughs.

A Brief History of Seven Killings, a fictional history of the attempted murder of Bob Marley in 1976, was “an extraordinary book”, said Michael Wood, the chair of judges. “[It was] very exciting, very violent, full of swearing. It was a book we didn’t actually have any difficulty deciding on – it was a unanimous decision, a little bit to our surprise.

James, aged 44, who lives in Minneapolis, is the first Jamaican author to win the prize in the Man Booker’s 47-year history...

The Guardian.

As Marlon wrote in a moving New York Times' essay earlier this year, From Jamica to Minnesota to Myself, being a gay man is far from incidental to his story.

PS This Telegraph interview published this morning briefly touches on his sexuality.

Not sure how much the 'frank descriptions of gay sex and drug-taking' swayed the judges, ackchewlee.