Author Marlon James Wins Booker Prize for Fiction

Great news for Black authors worldwide this week. 

Firstly, on Tuesday, Jamaican author Marlon James was announced the winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his A Brief History of Seven Killings. The novel depicts an attempted assassination of late singer Bob Marley and delves into the crack cocaine epidemic in the U.S.

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The Booker Prize is a prestigious award given to works published in English and in the United Kingdom. James is the first author of Jamaican descent to take home the 50,000 pound ($77,000) prize. 

James said that he hopes the win brings "more attention to what's coming out of Jamaica and the Caribbean, because I think there are some brand-new voices coming out who are exploring contemporary society, who are exploring what's beyond politics, what's beyond colonialism," the Associated Press reports.  

In other author news, African-American author Ta-Nehisi Coates was nominated for a National Book Award, a U.S. based honor, for his book Between the World and Me, a memoir that consists of a series of letters to his teenage son. Winners will be announced on Nov. 18 in New York City. 


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(Photo:Alastair Grant/ AP Photo)