MARLON JAMES

X marks the spot: how a Booker winner found his way to fantasy

- Jonathan Wright

BIODATA

From Kingston, Jamaica

Greatest Hits When James won the 2015 Booker Prize for A Brief History Of Seven Killings, he received an eight-minute ovation. “I counted… It was fantastic. It was also deeply uncomfortable.” His other novels include The Book Of Night Women (2009).

Random Fact James is working on scripts for a TV series for HBO and Channel 4, a Jamaica-set six-part crime drama entitled Get Milly Black.

WHEN MARLON JAMES CHOSE TO follow up his Booker-winning A Brief History Of Seven Killings with a fantasy trilogy, there was some surprise within parts of the literary establishment. But talk to the man himself and one of the reasons for this choice couldn’t come through more clearly.

“There are some very, very simple and basic reasons why fantasy,” he says, his accent Jamaican despite the fact he now lives in the USA. “I like magic. I like witches. I like goblins and demons, and I like fairies!”

There was another reason for choosing fantasy. “I became fascinated and consumed with African mythology, early religion and early history,” he explains. “The fantasy novels almost happened as an outgrowth of that.”

Whatever the motivations, be glad that James did choose to write his Dark Star trilogy – the second volume of which is now arriving – as his take on the form is unique. For a start, there’s the books’ timeline. Both Moon Witch, Spider King and its predecessor