Jamaican · b. 1970
Marlon James won the Booker Prize in 2015 for "A Brief History of Seven Killings," a 700-page novel centered on the 1976 assassination attempt on Bob Marley. The Jamaican author's polyphonic narrative spans decades and continents, giving voice to politicians, gangsters, CIA agents, and ghosts. "The Book of Night Women" (2009) tells of a slave revolt in eighteenth-century Jamaica. His Dark Star Trilogy brings African mythology into epic fantasy. James left Jamaica for Minneapolis; his work carries the Caribbean with him.