Prémio Booker

O prémio Booker (Man Booker Prize) existe desde 1969 normalmente atribuído a autores do Reino Unido, Commonwealth, República da Irlanda e Zimbabué que escrevam em língua inglesa. É a segunda vez que o prémio está disponível para autores de qualquer nacionalidade que escrevam originalmente em inglês e que sejam publicados no Reino Unido.

O vencedor foi anunciado a 13 de Outubro de 2015 na London’s Guildhall com transmissão da BBC. O vencedor, Marlon James, de 44 anos e actualmente a residir em Minneapolis, é o primeiro jamaicano a vencer o prémio.

Marlon James (Jamaica)

A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld Publications)

A Brief History of Seven Killings is a 686-page epic with over 75 characters and voices. Set in Kingston, where James was born, the book is a fictional history of the attempted murder of Bob Marley in 1976. Of the book, the New York Times said: ‘It’s like a Tarantino remake of “The Harder They Come”, but with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a script by Oliver Stone and William Faulkner...epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex.'

Referring to Bob Marley only as ‘The Singer’ throughout, A Brief History of Seven Killings retells this near mythic assassination attempt through the myriad voices – from witnesses and FBI and CIA agents to killers, ghosts, beauty queens and Keith Richards’ drug dealer – to create a rich, polyphonic study of violence, politics and the musical legacy of Kingston of the 1970s. James has credited Charles Dickens as one of his formative influences, saying ‘I still consider myself a Dickensian in as much as there are aspects of storytelling I still believe in—plot, surprise, cliffhangers’ (Interview Magazine).

 

Fonte: Site Man Booker Prize