Collection Set: A Brief History of Seven Killings / The Book of Night Women / John Crow's Devil

by Marlon James

Marlon James Collection 3 Books (A Brief History of Seven WINNER of the Man Booker Prize 2015, The Book of Night Women, John Crow's Devil) Boundle Description Titles in this series A Brief History of Seven Killings The Book of Night Women John Crow's Devil Description Title By Title A Brief History of Seven Killings Seven gunmen storm Bob Marleys house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but the gunmen are never caught. From the acclaimed author of The Book of Night Women comes a dazzling display of masterful storytelling exploring this near-mythic event. 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. The Book of Night Women This is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the Night Women a clandestine council of fierce slaves plotting an island-wide revolt recognize a dark force in her that they treat with both reverence and fear. But as Lilith comes of age and begins to understand her own feelings and identity, she dares to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman. John Crow's Devil On a day beginning with a bad omen black vultures, known locally as John Crows, crash through the local church windows a handsome and charismatic stranger drags the village preacher from his pulpit and takes over both church and congregation. Promising vengeance and damnation, he wastes no time delivering both, and in doing so starts a power struggle that sets the village of Gibbeah on a path to destruction.

Paperback

About the author

Marlon James is a Jamaican-born writer. He has published three novels: John Crow's Devil (2005), The Book of Night Women (2009) and A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Now living in Minneapolis, James teaches literature at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

James was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to parents who were both in the Jamaican police: his mother (who gave him his first prose book, a collection of stories by O. Henry) became a detective and his father (from whom James took a love of Shakespeare and Coleridge) a lawyer. James is a 1991 graduate of the University of the West Indies, where he read Language and Literature. He received a master's degree in creative writing from Wilkes University (2006).

James has taught English and creative writing at Macalester College since 2007. His first novel, John Crow's Devil — which was rejected 70 times before being accepted for publication — tells the story of a biblical struggle in a remote Jamaican village in 1957. His second novel, The Book of Night Women, is about a slave woman's revolt in a Jamaican plantation in the early 19th century. His most recent novel, 2014's A Brief History of Seven Killings, explores several decades of Jamaican history and political instability through the perspectives of many narrators. It won the fiction category of the 2015 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, having been the first book by a Jamaican author ever to be shortlisted. He is the second Caribbean winner of the prize, following Trinidad-born V. S. Naipaul who won in 1971.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Malene Bentzen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief history of seven killings: Hmmm liked it, but not sure it needed so many characters and their stories. Draged it out and made it hard to keep taps on the people in the story that mattered.
I did find it interesting and it made me look up Jamaica and its history.
He writes well