132,957
edits
Changes
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (view source)
Revision as of 13:09, 12 October 2015
, 13:09, 12 October 2015no edit summary
On December 3rd 1976 a group of armed men go to Bob Marley's Jamaican home in Hope Road on a mission to kill 'The Singer'. No one will be arrested for it but that doesn't mean their lives afterwards will be normal. This is a total fictionalisation of their story and therefore the story of the people of the Jamaican ghettoes: the politics, the unrest, the gang warfare and the death.
[[:CatergoryCategory:Marlon James|Marlon James]] was a young child in the Jamaica of 1976, sheltered in a middle class suburb. He is keen to point out that the hardly mentioned safety of these suburbs is as valid a part of Jamaica as the more widely publicised impoverished Jungle district. In interviews Marlon also highlights the huge differences between the two types of upbringing. The first time he heard a gunshot was as an adult in an American theatre (it being part of the play he was watching). The first time a child in the Jamaican ghettoes hears a gunshot, they're too young to talk.
The latter experiences were of more interest to Marlon than the mundane everyday. In writing about them he's fashioned the murder attempt on Marley into a literary pivot and has created something that isn't just un-everyday; it's brilliant.