The Booker Prize Podcast, Episode 8: An interview with Marlon James

Cast your minds back to the heady days of 2015… It’s early autumn and Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life is hotly-tipped to scoop the Booker Prize but the judges award that year’s prize to A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James – an epic novel inspired by the true story of an attempted assassination attempt on Bob Marley. This week, Marlon James joins Jo and James on the podcast to tell us how winning the Booker Prize changed his life, his writing, and what he’s working on next.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A 10th-anniversary edition of A Brief History of Seven Killings will be published, with a new introduction, in June 2024.

Transcripts of The Booker Prize Podcast are generated using both speech recognition software and human transcribers, and as a result, may contain errors.

—

Jo Hamya:

Welcome to the Booker Prize Podcast with me, Jo Hamya.

James Walton:

And me, James Walton.

Jo Hamya:

And we’ve got a real treat for you today. For the first time ever, we are interviewing an actual Booker Prize winner, Marlon James, who in 2015 became the first ever Jamaican writer to win the prize. Which he did with the extraordinary, A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Despite its title, though it’s not so brief. It’s 700 pages and with much, much more than seven killings.

James Walton:

No, indeed.

Jo Hamya:

Before we play the interview, which full disclosure we’ve already recorded, we’re going to set the scene a bit beginning with the 2015 shortlist. As well as A Brief History, the shortlist included Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island, Sunjeev Sahota’s, The Year of the Runaways, and the book least like A Brief History. Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread, another of her terrific, sharp-eyed but tender portrayals of a middle-class family in Baltimore.

As you’ll hear Marlon James saying though, the big favourite that year was Hanya Yanagihara’s famously bleak A Little Life.

James Walton:

Just a quick anecdote on that, I remember when A Little Life mania was at its height. I was on holiday with quite a big group of quite bookish people, all of whom read it one by one. As soon as they finished it, they weren’t going to the pub that night.

Jo Hamya:

Oh, God. It ruins the holiday, doesn’t it-

James Walton:

[inaudible]

Jo Hamya:

… reading that book.

James Walton:

Hey, coming out for a drink? No, I don’t think so. I think I’ll just go to bed if that’s all right. Yeah.

Jo Hamya:

James, do you want to give us a summary of A Brief History of Seven Killings?

James Walton:

Yeah, I will.

It opens in Jamaica in the mid 1970s when the country finds itself involved in the Cold War, following the election of as Prime Minister of Michael Manley, who is the socialist leader of the People’s National Party, PMP. Naturally his friendship with Fidel Castro in Cuba, much along the Americans who backed the conservative Jamaican Labour Party. As it’s rather confusing the name for a British audience, the Conservative Party there is the Labour Party, led by Edward Seaga.

Meanwhile, the gangs in the shanty towns in Kingston also took sides in the parties. Leading to an outbreak of huge violence that even extended to an assassination attempt on the island’s most famous citizen, who at that time was generally thought to be untouchable than any, Bob Marley. Although in fact like the key politicians of the time, he’s not named in the novel and is referred to only as the singer.

Anyway, both the gang warfare and the assassination attempt are extremely vividly chronicled in the book. As is what happened next, which is that some of the leading Jamaican gangsters moved to New York where they played a central role in bringing the crack epidemic to the mostly Black inner cities.

It’s a big book in every way, as you say 700 pages. List at the beginning of its characters runs more than 70. It’s also narrated by around a dozen different narrators: CIA operatives, journalists, and plenty of gangsters, many of them writing in Jamaican Patois, and some of whom like Marlon James in fact are gay.

Indeed, he has said that one of the reasons he left Jamaica to study and then teacher at American universities was because of the less than gay friendly attitudes he’d encountered in his life on the island.

And then the only other things I think you might need to know for this interview include that since winning the Booker, Marlon James has been at work on perhaps an even more ambitious project. Sort of fantasy trilogy set in mediaeval Africa, drawing heavily on both folklore and often overlooked history.

He also refers at one point to Doug, which is Douglas Stewart, author of Shuggie Bain. But as this is the Booker Prize Podcast, we started with some suitably Booker-related questions.

Warm, welcome to Marlon. Thanks so much for doing this. We’re delighted to have you. So what was it like when you were longlisted?

Marlon James:

If I remember, I just went on with things because I didn’t want to think about it too much. I didn’t want to get my hopes up or jinx it or anything like that.

I think I was in Edinburgh, actually.

Jo Hamya:

Can I ask how you heard the news? Who told you?

Marlon James:

I think I read it in the Jamaica newspaper, actually, online.

Jo Hamya:

Oh my God.

Marlon James:

Yeah, so I think they knew before me.

James Walton:

And then so your hope’s not getting up too much at this stage, and then you get shortlisted.

Marlon James:

I was slightly less surprised the shortlist. I always thought the longlist is the real hard one, and the shortlist was six books. I mean, I wasn’t as surprised about that. But I certainly didn’t think I was going to win.

Jo Hamya:

Why not?

Marlon James:

I don’t know. I just didn’t think so. Not my favourite and I don’t know. Maybe some sort of imposter syndrome. I just really put it to the back of my head.

James Walton:

Did you read the other books on the shortlist?

Marlon James:

Well, Tom McCarthy because I’m a huge McCarthy fan. Sunjeev Sahota’s book Year of The Runaways, I had read, Chigozie’s book.

I think those are the three that I read at the time.

James Walton:

It strikes me as a slightly weird bit, that bit where you do events and things together, don’t you, when you’re all shortlisted?

Marlon James:

Yeah.

James Walton:

So it must be almost being on a reality TV show in the sense that you’re comrades, but you’re also rival.

Marlon James:

Yeah, pretend to be friends.

James Walton:

Exactly, yeah. And how did that pretending go?

Marlon James:

Got along really well. I think all of us have read at least a few or one or two of each other’s books. So I think by that time it really… For us, it didn’t really matter who won because we’re just such admirers of each other’s work.

James Walton:

Is that really true, though?

Jo Hamya:

James!

Marlon James:

I think so.

James Walton:

Just seems quite high-minded that nobody really minded who won. Was there no one who broke ranks and was obviously ambitious?

Marlon James:

Well, I guess because nobody really wanted to be disappointed or nobody wanted to get their hopes up.

I mean, so much of it is I guess a matter of opinion. I mean, I think there was a clear favourite. I think the media declared a clear favourite, which was A Little Life. I think a lot of people just assumed it was going to win.

Jo Hamya:

I really want to know what happened when you did win. Did you party? Did you go out?

Marlon James:

Oh man, what didn’t I do?

Jo Hamya:

There’s a really famous question that used to get asked, it’s dropped out of fashion, but what did you do with the prize money?

Marlon James:

I saved it because I’m smart.

Jo Hamya:

Oh. Investments or just a personal account?

Marlon James:

Nah, just a [inaudible] in the bank.

So actually that’s not totally true. Somebody said I should buy an outrageous gift to celebrate, which is the wrong thing to say to me. So I bought this lamp that’s a life-sized horse. It’s literally like a 12 foot by nine foot life-sized horse with a lampshade on the head.

Jo Hamya:

Why?

Marlon James:

Because I saw it and I thought, this is the greatest thing ever or maybe the worst idea ever. I’m like, I have to have it.

James Walton:

What happens over the next few days and weeks after you’ve won?

Marlon James:

It’s pretty much madness. The interview start from around 6:00 AM. They don’t really stop until around 9:00 PM. I have totally lost my voice.

There’s a very hilarious video of me on I think… It wasn’t HARDtalk. It was Channel Four’s news programme. There’s a very hilarious interview of me where nobody understands what I’m saying because I’ve totally lost my voice.

Jo Hamya:

I think everyone asked you what you were going to do with you new platform and how you are going to use all your newfound fame. But I’m really interested to know, especially eight years on, whether winning a prize that big changed your writing practise or your writing itself.

I know you say that Seven Killings was your eff you novel. The novel where you sat down on the page all the things you thought you couldn’t before and broke convention, which is a really interesting place in your career to win. But afterwards, did you feel freer or set back? How did that go?

Marlon James:

I don’t know if I felt either. I certainly didn’t feel set back or I’ve just written another version of Brief History. Instead, I wrote was basically a fantasy novel.

Yeah, I didn’t really feel any sort of pressure. I think because part of it too is my first novel was in an independent verse. It did well, but it was pretty small. I don’t know if it would’ve been different if I had a debut novel win the Booker. I don’t know. I don’t know what is it for… I should ask Doug, “How is it going having won the Booker with your debut?”

For me it was because I’ve had published before and published a small publisher, I already knew what rock bottom felt like.

Jo Hamya:

Oh, God.

James Walton:

That’s always helpful.

Marlon James:

So whatever happens. So the commercial prospects post Booker didn’t really scare me at all. Whether the next book sells a lot or doesn’t sell at all, it didn’t really matter because I’ve just been through so much of that.

For me also, I realised that one way to stay grounded when you’re in the middle of any type of hype is to just start writing the next book. So I had actually started thinking of the next book from before Brief History was even published, before it even came out. I was so busy already in a world, and this was a mediaeval African fantasy world so far removed from the present day, that that’s where my head was.

James Walton:

There must be authors who just really just abandoned themselves, just relish it. Just think, this is great. I’m famous now. I’m just going to really love this, being fated everyway. Was that a temptation or it just wasn’t?

Marlon James:

I was a total temptation. I totally gave into it, of course.

James Walton:

I would. I sure would.

Marlon James:

Firstly, famous [inaudible] famous. I think famous is book famous. It’s not like anybody’s going invite me to the same place they invite Usain Bolt or so on.

But at the same time, being book famous certainly beats being not famous. Because for one thing, I tell you one thing that changed because of the Booker, so many countries became curious. For one, the Commonwealth, so that’s 48 countries that may not have heard of me before.

The book got translated in I think over 32 languages, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise. So I think that the exposure that comes and the curiosity that this prize still creates around the world does change you in certain ways. Brief History is in both Portugal Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese.

James Walton:

Wow. Quite a tricky book to translate it would seem to me. Did you get puzzled emails from translators?

Marlon James:

Not really. Because I think what most translators did is they just translated it into whatever was their country’s street culture.

Jo Hamya:

And-

Marlon James:

Certainly in Brazil it’s like how people speak in the favelas, and that’s what they did. I think because of that, because of street culture, because of whatever countries on the world, they just use that language. So I think it was actually a lot easier than people thought.

And also I know I mean everybody’s heard of Bob Marley. They know some Jamaican Patois. So usually the person who translate usually knew more about Jamaica than me.

Jo Hamya:

Something that I’ve found really interesting is that you’ve said that you were writing more about your parents’ Jamaica than yours. Especially because both your parents were cops at one point, although your dad went on to become a lawyer.

I was wondering, have they read the book? What did they make of it? Did they think it was a faithful portrayal?

James Walton:

He’s not very nice about Jamaican cops on the whole, is he?

Marlon James:

No, but then again, my mom was a cop and was very nice about Jamaican cops. Well, my dad passed away before the book came out, so he didn’t get a chance to read it. My mom is [inaudible] she hasn’t read it because of the language, but I don’t believe her. I think she has or she’s read some of it.

What’s really interesting is that some of the politicians who were in the book have read it. I really thought after writing this book that I couldn’t go back to Jamaica. I’d be a marked man and so on. Some of the people involved in the story have read it, and they’re just so disconnected from it. It was really strange, very uncanny I think in a way. Even though they were part of that history, they’re so disconnected from it now that either they don’t recognise themselves, which is great. Or they just think a different person, a different life, did that.

But it was interesting because when I wrote this book, I was counting on the party that comes off better to be in power when I came back to Jamaica so I could feel safe. It’s a party I criticised the most that came back in power when I went back to Jamaica and I thought, oh my God, I’m a dead man.

But then they gave me some award and it was weird. It was so weird being in a room with people. I’m like, you know you’re in the book, right?

James Walton:

Which part is this? I mean, you gave both of them quite a hard time.

Marlon James:

Well, the JLP comes off worse. Both of them have a pretty atrocious ’70s record. In the book I think the JLP… I don’t call them the JLP, but I think I call them Jamaican National Party or something. I can’t remember what I call them. But they do come off worse.

Because Jamaica entered the Cold War, and the US picked which party they sided with, the more conservative capitalist party. Because of the conflicts between the two parties, violence exploded. I wasn’t shirking away from that. But to be among these people in these neighbourhoods and so on, it was either they read it and didn’t see themselves or they didn’t read it, which both of which I’m fine with.

James Walton:

What did Jamaica make of it? On the one hand, there must have been a lot of pride, the first Jamaican to win the Booker Prize. On the other hand, was there any attitude of, look, we know this stuff, you know this stuff. But does the world really need to know this stuff?

Marlon James:

You know I didn’t really pay attention to that. I’m sure it was there, but I think what I heard mostly was people being relieved that we’re talking about it.

Because a lot of this stuff we talk, we call it the veranda discussion. You talk about it on the balcony, on the veranda, on the patio, far away from anybody else hearing. So it’s stuff we all know, but it’s not stuff we discuss or debate or come to terms with or hold people accountable for. I think for a lot of people, this book was a chance to talk about things that are usually unspeakable.

James Walton:

Do you go back to Jamaica much now?

Marlon James:

I do, actually. I was there for half a year last year and just came back, actually. So I’m there quite a bit, actually.

James Walton:

And how is the old place?

Marlon James:

So this is the thing about Jamaica I realise. I think a lot of people think, have this idea, that Jamaica and Caribbean, and maybe even African communities in the diaspora, tend to be more open-minded than their host countries. It’s an interesting thing to think. It’s something we assume that Jamaicans in, say, New York may be more open-minded than Jamaicans in Kingston.

That’s actually not the case at all. What I find is the country’s constantly moving ahead. The immigrants for most part… Not for most part, but a lot of immigrants I come in contact with, they hold onto the Jamaica they left behind.

So I’ve actually had more criticism from Jamaicans in the diaspora than Jamaicans in the country. A lot of Jamaican community in, say, the United Kingdom or the US don’t mess with me at all. I’m not invited to their functions. The consulate general doesn’t have me on speed dial. I think in the diaspora there’s a sense that I’ve aired dirty laundry.

James Walton:

Yeah.

Jo Hamya:

I’m going to go on a slight tangent away from this. But Marlon, I think some of my favourite writing is actually on your Facebook account. I love it.

I’ve noticed that your Twitter has gone silent though, which I also love. You used to call out American Airlines and white girls in the club for being stuffy. Why have you chosen to stay on Facebook?

Marlon James:

I think because I’m old. I think because I’m old. Because my rants are usually too long for Twitter, and I hear you can just split it up. I was like, yeah, I think I’m just too old.

I know I’m old because there are times when I would say something on Facebook and the next day it’s in The Guardian. I know I’ll say all sorts of stuff and it’s like, as we say in America, crickets. So clearly nobody’s reading Facebook.

James Walton:

You just mentioned cricket there. Can I just ask you one thing from my own?

Jo Hamya:

Oh, crickets.

James Walton:

Oh, yeah, just for…

Jo Hamya:

You’re desperately reaching here, James.

James Walton:

I am. I’m very interested in, I don’t know if you are, Marlon. But so that scene right at the end of A Brief History where there’s that reconnection scene in the Jamaican cafe. One of the symptoms of it is there’s this cricket on the telly.

But the West Indian cricket seems to be disappearing. I mean I’m quite old, I think older than you. I really genuinely disorientated living in a world where the West Indies aren’t brilliant at cricket because they were just like gods to us growing up.

Is that a matter of A, personal concern or B, sociological interest to you?

Marlon James:

I’ve always disliked cricket. But I could play it, which is funny.

James Walton:

Yeah, you realise you’ve just broken my heart, but okay.

Jo Hamya:

You’ve just made my day [inaudible]

Marlon James:

You know what, though? I think the Westerners needs to reconsider how they introduced us to cricket.

When I was in high school, we had three terms. First term was football, second term you did track and field, third term you did cricket. Everybody had to do cricket, which maybe why I can do it, but I don’t like it. I still have the school thing in me. Do it or get a C.

But I think though that my problem with Westerners’ cricket goes pretty… I think we’re reaping a lot of stuff we sold in the ’90s. To name names, yes, Brian Lara was a great cricketer. He’s a fantastic player. Did he help the team much? I don’t know.

I think that when you go back to the glory days of the Viv Richards and these guys, they’re fantastic players. But they’re team players. I think at some point cricket players got very interested in records and very interested in adding up runs and very interested in making the Guinness Book of World Records.

It is funny, cricket almost became like football in Jamaica and football became like cricket. Because what used to be the problem with Jamaica and football is that we had all these prima donnas, we had all these stars, but nobody plays as a team.

You end up with this weird thing Jamaica… Only Jamaicans I’ve heard said this. They’ll say the other team won, but that team played better. That makes no sense.

Jo Hamya:

I think the English say that as well.

Marlon James:

But if you’re Jamaican you understand it because they like the dazzling show-offiness. In a weird way, some of the football have become more team-like. I think cricket frayed that way.

I think it became a bunch of players instead of a team, and I think we still reaping the benefits of that.

Jo Hamya:

I want to turn us to a topic that actually it’s probably quite topical because of the SAG writer strike happening at the moment.

Marlon James:

I am on strike, but I have written an original series for HBO.

Jo Hamya:

Oh, okay.

James Walton:

Is that-

Jo Hamya:

Can you tell us about that?

James Walton:

This is Get Millie Black, I think. Yeah.

Marlon James:

Sure, it’s Get Millie Black. It’s our co-production of HBO and Channel Four. Yeah, we’ve actually finished filming. It’s a story about a Jamaican. She left for London at nine. Her teenage years, adult years, in London, she worked. She used to be a Scotland Yard. She left with a dark cloud under her name and came back to Jamaica. Ends up being embroiled in a case that takes her right back to the UK she left behind.

So it’s a Jamaican UK production. We finished filming already. We actually finished filming, and we’re just doing the whole usual edit. We don’t like this edit, let’s do that edit. All the little things you have to do to make a TV show, a TV show, that’s kind of what we’re doing right now.

But yeah, it’s not based on anything. It was an original story that I wrote.

Jo Hamya:

Can I ask how screenwriting compares to novel writing?

Marlon James:

Novel writing is a pleasure. Dot, dot, dot.

James Walton:

By contrast?

Jo Hamya:

Do characters stay with you? It seems quite vivid. The process you go through and having favourites, it’s almost falling in love with them. When you finish a relationship, you think about the person you left for months after.

Marlon James:

Sometimes. A lot of times I don’t. I think one of the reasons why my books are all but one are pretty long is that they’re long because I can’t let go. And particularly A Brief History where I kept jumping. Every decade, I’m like, but what are they doing in this decade?

So I do think when I end a book is when I’m ready to let go. So I don’t think I’ve thought about the after lives of characters, not much. I’m not driven by the idea of sequels for example. Because I think the reason why my books are long is that I want to spend as much time as I can to get the full story. Sometimes it’s I’m at the end.

I always have a problem ending novels. Like A Brief History, I went on for a good 20 pages before I realised, dude, this book ended 20 pages ago.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, but it doesn’t even really end, it just stops. It just stops on a question, in fact.

Marlon James:

Yeah, and that’s the thing. Yeah, it does. It does stop. It doesn’t end. It just stops. Because I think a story like that, yeah, it just stops.

James Walton:

Talking of long books. I listened to a podcast you did where you were talking about your 19-year-old students just basically not getting on with long books. So when you were teaching them Steinbeck, you’d steer clear Grapes of Wrath and so on.

Does that give you pause? Do you think, my book’s going to be too long for my kind of student people? I know who-

Marlon James:

I don’t know. I mean, most of the times I teach short books to just get us through the semester. I’d rather them read six short books than two long ones.

It’s not a judgement call or a taste call on the books, but I think we… It’s weird. We go back and forth, don’t we? Because at one point because of instant messengers, and so everybody was worried about these kids not reading long stuff. And then online you had sites like Pitchfork that went into long reviews.

I go, oh, but they do read that. I mean, a lot of millennials and stuff have a Substack account, so there is a place for long reading. But then we have TikTok and we have BookTok, which I’m not an enemy of at all. But I understand the concerns that are these things encouraging reading, or is encouraging you identifying as a reader?

Because those are not the same thing. It’s like I know people who want to write books. I know people who want to be considered a writer. They’re not the same people.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, it’s such-

Marlon James:

No, I’m not going to name names. I’m not starting any fights tonight, but-

James Walton:

Oh.

Jo Hamya:

It’s like aesthetics versus content basically, isn’t it?

Marlon James:

Yeah.

Jo Hamya:

How something is packaged versus what’s actually inside it.

Marlon James:

Yeah, and I think on one hand a lot of TikTokkers would say, “But I am talking about the content,” because they have read the book.

But on the other hand you do, your publisher says, “Yeah, I had to do it in this package. I had to put in a video and I include some dark chocolate,” and such and such. I’m like, so what are we talking about here? Exactly.

So yeah, ultimately I’m for anything that gets people curious about books. Honestly, I don’t necessarily have to criticise TikTok for not going deep into the book. If they get the person to the cover, they’re going to open the book.

James Walton:

Yeah, and then identifying as a reader is better than not identifying as a reader.

Marlon James:

Absolutely, so ultimately it’s all for the good of books. And books could use some good.

Jo Hamya:

You’ve got one book left in the trilogy, don’t you, that’s still to come out?

Marlon James:

Yeah.

Jo Hamya:

Is that the end of this year or next year?

Marlon James:

Next year.

Jo Hamya:

Next year?

Marlon James:

No. Would it be next year? I can’t remember now.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, neither can I.

Marlon James:

I’m so stuck in writing.

Jo Hamya:

Oh, God.

Marlon James:

Soon. Let’s say soon.

Jo Hamya:

I think it actually has a release day.

James Walton:

Hey, toodle-oo.

Jo Hamya:

No, to be fair to both of us. How’s that going? You’re stuck in writing.

Marlon James:

It’s going really well, actually. The third one is called White Wing, Dark Star. And again, it’s a perspective

of another character.

I do love the idea of, again, different characters telling the same story story. But Moon Witch’s story ended up being a good almost 200 years before Black Leopard even happens.

They’re a lot of fun, clearly. I mean, I call them fantasy novels. In a lot of ways they’re kind of magical realism for me.

James Walton:

Did you know what each book would be when you started? Or did you…

Marlon James:

No, I didn’t.

James Walton:

You wrote-

Marlon James:

I had a clue midway through writing Black Leopard who would tell us the second story. But as for the third one, I didn’t know until I finished [inaudible] the second one.

James Walton:

And what the most fun part of the writing process and what are the least fun parts?

Marlon James:

The most fun part for me is the actual writing, actually.

Jo Hamya:

God, no one ever says that.

Marlon James:

I know. I love it. The actual writing, the typing, the get the idea down on page. And for me, I am open enough that I’m still sometimes surprised by where my own stories go. And that to me is a lot of fun.

The thing I absolutely hate doing is conceiving the idea.

Jo Hamya:

It’s like the complete reverse of what [inaudible]

Marlon James:

Yeah, even though I’m not… One of the reasons I think why I am not under pressure from do I match these sales or follow the Booker and so on is that I have enough pressure on my own to what am I going to write next.

Because I never remember the process of beginning a book. I remember ending them. I never remember beginning them. And I keep going, oh man, I forgot how this is hard. I don’t like this at all.

Jo Hamya:

I guess it’s everyone compares writing to birth. A lot of women say they forget how painful birth was and that’s why they’re able to do it again.

Marlon James:

Certainly for me coming up with stories and the beginning process. Figuring out whose story it is, what voice it should be in. Is it third person, second, first? And I don’t have an efficient way of doing it. All I can do is keep writing until I go, this isn’t working, and start over.

James Walton:

And this might be a slightly brutal question, given that you’re coming to the end of an enormously long and ambitious trilogy, any idea have you got something lined up for after that?

Marlon James:

Oh yeah, already. I know it exactly.

James Walton:

Oh, have you?

Marlon James:

Yeah.

James Walton:

Well, are you allowed to say?

Marlon James:

I would say it’s about a hidden sort of not spoken about corner of Jamaican life. I’m looking at it from the 1940s to now.

James Walton:

And do we know what that hidden aspect is, or is that secret?

Marlon James:

I’m so not telling you.

Jo Hamya:

You’re pushing your luck, James.

James Walton:

I sort of knew that, actually. That felt like a futile question even while I was asking it.

Jo Hamya:

Marlon, thank you so much.

Marlon James:

Thanks for having me.

James Walton:

It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you.

Jo Hamya:

Well, there we have it. That was Marlon James. What a great guy to talk to.

James Walton:

I must admit, I thought he was absolutely fantastic. Shame about him not liking cricket. That was his only black mark.

Jo Hamya:

It breaks my heart.

James Walton:

Yeah, he’s so funny, so interesting. Read every book in the world as far as I could see.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, you really could talk to him about anything and he’d have an opinion on it.

James Walton:

That was a real joy for me.

We should say something about what we thought of the book. So after all that crush that we both got on him now, let’s say we both liked it. I really did. I think it’s pretty much a masterpiece.

I suppose the only question is it a bit much? And I think yes, it is a bit much. That’s the glory of it.

Jo Hamya:

Well, it’s interesting. He does in other interviews speak a lot to the fact that he didn’t want a PG-13 version of violence in the novel. He didn’t want to sanitise the idea of, whether it’s physical or political violence in the ruler’s mind. And by doing so, make it somehow acceptable.

And for that reason, I really rate the novel, too. I mean, it is a bit much. I don’t think it’s something that you can sit down and read and one big chunk. Not least because there’s so much information coming at you all the time.

James Walton:

That’s right. And that was one interesting thing he said in that interview really was that he just kept going. So in fact, had the novel ended in the ’70s with the Bob Marley assassination attempt, I don’t think we would’ve thought, where’s the ’80s and ’90s in New York and the crack epidemic?

Jo Hamya:

What’s happening in Cuba?

James Walton:

Yeah. But because all that’s there, it’s just part of the generosity of it and the scale of it. Those bits are terrific, too.

I think he manages almost that with the violence as well, really. I mean, it starts off, you think, blimey, this is a bit violent and maybe 700 pages later you would be dull to it. But you’re not because he still finds more and more extreme and horrible things going on.

Which might make it sound gruelling, but it’s not quite that either, is it? It’s a really source of rollicking.

Jo Hamya:

Very much so. Well, to that point, James, who would you recommend it to?

James Walton:

Well, I’d recommend it to anyone with a bit of time because it is long. Also, I’d recommend, far bit for me to tell people how to read a book, but I mean sentence by sentence, it is great. But I don’t think it’s a book to savour. I think you should just let the whole thing blow over you like some sort of tsunami, which it sort of is.

Maybe that’s just the way I read it. I started off thinking, God, this sentence is good. That’s good. And then I just abandoned myself to the whole great sweep of it. It was marvellous.

Jo Hamya:

I really agree. I think to me, there was actually something slightly Dickensian about it in a weird way. He does also talk a lot about being influenced by Greek classics, and there is something of the Odyssey about it.

But anyone who loves getting particularly… I hate this phrase because it’s become a cliche, but I guess it’s cliched for a reason, lost in a novel, like fully stuck into something, A Brief History is definitely for them.

James Walton:

I see your cliche and I raise you immersive. It’s-

Jo Hamya:

Ah, I’ve been outdone.

James Walton:

Yeah, you’ve been out-cliched. I mean, it is immersive.

You mentioned their Greek stuff. There’s that, but there’s everything. I don’t know whether we should recommend other people’s books podcasts. Except I would do in this case because Marlon James does one with his editor, which is called Marlon and Jake Read Dead People, which is pretty much what it says on the, if we’re sticking with cliches, metaphorical tin.

What’s clear from that is he’s read more or less every book ever. I mean, not just the classics of all nationalities, though certainly them. But also comic books, thrillers. He even puts in a good word for the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder at one point. He does say boy was that girl racist. But he also says that he liked what she wrote.

One of his famous favourite crime writers is Ross Macdonald, who’s quite big in the ’50s and ’60s. He said what he liked about him was that the way crimes build, the way things escalate. So it looks as though that’s the worst crime that’s happened, and then it escalates from there and there. I think you could suggest that was an influence on the structure as well.

So a lot going on in that book, and all of it great.

Jo Hamya:

And that’s it for this week. If you haven’t already followed the show, please do and remember to leave us a rating.

James Walton:

You can find us at thebookerprizes.com and on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack at TheBookerPrizes.

Jo Hamya:

We’d love to hear what you think about the episode, Marlon James, and A Brief History of Seven Killings. Please, please do get in touch.

James Walton:

And until next week, when actually as luck would have it, to be honest, we are doing The Sellout by Paul Beatty, which won the Booker Prize the year after Marlon James. And possibly not a book for the fainthearted either.

But rather the neat follow on, Jo. We don’t just throw these podcasts together.

Jo Hamya:

No, it’s so organised.

James Walton:

Or sometimes it just all works out.

Anyway, until then, goodbye.

Jo Hamya:

Bye.

James Walton:

The Booker Prize Podcast is hosted by Jo Hamya and me, James Walton. It’s produced and edited by Benjamin Sutton, and the executive producer is John Davenport. It’s a Daddy’s SuperYacht production for the Booker Prizes.