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
