Put the single story to bed

2015 Man Booker winner Marlon James

IT was a good week for those of us listening hopefully for the recognition of new voices in world literature.

Marlon James became the first Jamaican born winner of one of the world’s most highly regarded literary awards, the Man Booker Prize.

His winning novel A Brief History of Seven Killings traces a murderous lineage in Jamaica and the United States which began with the attempted murder of Bob Marley in 1976.

James, who teaches creative writing at an American college, received the prize along with a big bauble of £50,000 Great Britain pounds (J$9.2 million Jamaica dollars) at a black-tie dinner at Guildhall in London.

But the glitz and the gold could not cover the irony that James in hoisting the trophy above the stage would be looking down on some of the publishers who collectively rejected his first novel John Crow’s Devil, 78 times, before it was eventually accepted in 2005.