Jamaican author Marlon James has had his novel “A Brief History of Seven Killings” selected as one of the Top 10 Fiction Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly magazine. The novel tells the story of Jamaica in the 1970s using a wide-ranging semi-historical approach with a plot that includes the attempted assassination of reggae singer Bob Marley and the culture of the drug crack in New York City. The was ranked as Number 9 in the Top 10 Fiction Books of the Decade, and according to Entertainment Weekly staffer Darren Franich, the prose is “intoxicating” and “relentless,” and brings the reader very close to the characters and offers an “evocative portrait of the author’s native Kingston.” “A Brief History of Seven Killings” was the winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2015. Marlon James was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1970. He attended Wolmer’s High School for Boys and graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1991 where he studied Language and Literature. James left Jamaica to escape negative social conditions that included economic issues and homophobia. He then attended Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, receiving a degree in creative writing. Among his awards are the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (Fiction) in 2015; the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award also in 2015;and the Man Booker Prize in 2015. His most recent work is “Black Leopard, Red Wolf,” which was published in 2019. James lives in Massachusetts and teaches literature at Macalester College in Minnesota. The other titles on the Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Fiction Book List of the decade include, in order, A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan; Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson; Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid; The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Kushner; Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward; Commonwealth, by Ann Patchet; Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mande; Normal People, by Sally Rooney.

Information and Photos Source – EW, Facebook