Marlon James, an associate professor of English at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. The award recognizes what the judges believe is the best novel written in the English language in the previous year. The prize, which comes with a cash award of 50,000 euros, was presented in London on October 13.
Professor James was honored for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings (Riverhead Press, 2014). The book relates a fictional account of an attempted assassination of music legend Bob Marley. The book is James’ third novel. His earlier works are The Book of Night Women (Riverhead Books, 2009) and John Crow’s Devil (Akashic Books, 2005).
James has been on the faculty at Macalester College since 2007. A native of Jamaica, James is a graduate of the University of the West Indies. He holds a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
