A Brief History of Seven Killings

Published in 2014, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a literary crime novel by Jamaican writer Marlon James. To serve as the foundation for his novel, James builds the narrative around a singular historical event: the 1976 assassination attempt on Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley, whom he fictionalizes as the Singer for thematic effect. James draws on his experiences growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1970s, and on his parents’ careers in law enforcement. The novel won several prizes, most notably the prestigious Booker Prize in 2015.

A Brief History of Seven Killings follows a large cast of characters led by gang member Josey Wales. When Josey fails to assassinate a famous cultural figure known as the Singer, he catapults himself into the illegal drug trade between Colombia and the United States. The novel traces Josey’s rise and fall and chronicles the lives of those affected, from an innocent bystander who stumbles into the Singer’s house during the ambush to an American journalist trying to collapse two decades’ worth of details into an authoritative account. The novel examines The Illusion of Ambition and Legacy,

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