UK Immigration focus on UK immigrant life: On the evening of October 13, local time in the UK, the 2015 Booker Prize was announced in London. The 44-year-old Jamaican author Marlon James won the award for his book A Brief History of Seven Killings. The English edition of the book is nearly 700 pages long and features over 75 characters. Michael Wood, chair of the judges, described it as a "thrilling, violent, and profanity-laden" book.
Winning work set against the background of the assassination of a reggae icon
With the opening up of the Booker Prize in recent years, the previously announced shortlist has also shown a trend of diversification, with the 6 shortlisted writers coming from the United States, the UK, Nigeria, and Jamaica. The eventual winner, James, is the first writer in Jamaican history to win the Booker Prize. He graduated from the University of the West Indies in the Caribbean, later pursued advanced studies in the United States, and currently teaches English and creative writing at Macalester College in Minnesota.
James had previously written two novels, "John Crow's Devil" and "The Book of Night Women"; the award-winning "A Brief History of Seven Killings" is his third novel. The story is set against the backdrop of the assassination attempt on reggae music icon Bob Marley before the Jamaican general election on December 3, 1976. Starting from this assassination, James retells this true historical event through the voices of various characters and institutions, including hitmen, witnesses, drug dealers, beauty queens, the CIA, and the FBI. At the same time, it portrays the social landscape of Jamaica from the 1970s to the 1990s: poverty and corruption, violence and drugs, politics and music. The English version of the book can be called a modern epic spanning several generations.
In recent years, the Booker Prize has shown a preference for "tome" works
It is worth noting that in recent years, the Booker Prize has favored "tome" works. The 2013 Booker Prize winner, the novel "The Luminaries" by New Zealand author Eleanor Catton, is over 830 pages long. Last year's winner, Australian author Richard Flanagan, had his novel "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" also exceed 460 pages. Marlon James revealed that he initially only intended to write a story about a white hitman hired in Miami to assassinate a Jamaican drug dealer, but ended up writing nearly 700 pages.
Booker Prize jury chair Michael Wood stated that this is a crime novel, but it transcends the scope of crime, leading us deep into a piece of history that is not so distant yet little known. He said: "This book is very thrilling, very violent, and filled with profanity. We didn't encounter any difficulties when selecting this book; we all unanimously agreed, which was a little unexpected for us." Michael Wood admitted that this is a "hard-hitting" novel; after his mother flipped through a few pages and saw the profanity, she did not continue reading.