A Brief History of Seven Killings with Marlon James

In 2015 Marlon James won the Booker Prize with his Jamaican set novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. 10 years on Marlon is visiting the UK with a special edition of the award-winning title – join him at Brixton Library to discuss this and his exceptional writing career.

Jamaica, 1976, Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley’s house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but the gunmen are never caught. Spanning three decades and crossing continents, A Brief History of Seven Killings chronicles the lives of a host of unforgettable characters – slum kids, drug lords, journalists, prostitutes, gunmen and even the CIA. Gripping and inventive, ambitious and mesmerising, the book is one of the most remarkable and extraordinary novels of the twenty-first century.

Marlon will be in conversation with Shani Akilah. Shani is a Black-British Caribbean writer and screenwriter from South London. She is a book influencer, co-founder of the Nyah Network, a book club for Black women, and was a literary judge for the Nota Bene Prize 2023. Shani has a Masters degree in African Studies from Oxford University. For Such a Time as This is her debut short-story collection.

Marlon James and Shani Akilah