About this item
Versatile writer Marlon James pens paranormal-tinged historical fiction, often set in Jamaica, as well as Afrocentric epic fantasy filled with a plethora of cultural references, ideas, and adventures. His dialect-rich historical fiction revolves around folklore and slavery set against a backdrop of sexual tension while his epic fantasy is a world-building labyrinth of genres and styles populated with myriad fantasy and horror creatures. Regardless of genre, James' culturally diverse characters are complicated and engaging and his stylistically complex stories all possess an undercurrent of violence.
About the Author
Marlon James was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1970. He is the author of The Book of Night Women, which won the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, The Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction as well as an NAACP Image Award. His first novel John Crow's Devil was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and was a New York Times Editor's Choice. In his third novel, A Brief History Of Seven Killings, James is exploring multiple genres: the political thriller, the oral biography, and the classic whodunit to confront the untold history of Jamaica in the late 1970's; of the assassination attempt on Bob Marley, and the country's own clandestine battles of the cold war. James graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1991 with a degree in Language And Literature, and from Wilkes University in 2006 with a Masters in creative writing. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared widely including in Esquire, Granta, and The Caribbean Review of Books.
