{"id":2351,"date":"2015-10-13T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2026-08-17T21:56:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T21:56:45","slug":"profile-marlon-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/trust-profiles\/profile-marlon-james\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlon James, Wolmer\u2019s Boys, Booker Prize 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Marlon James, a past student of Wolmer\u2019s Boys, is the first Jamaican writer to win the Man Booker Prize. Andr\u00e9 Wright, in a <em>Guardian<\/em> comment of 15 October 2015, wrote that James \u201cattended Wolmer\u2019s Boys, one of Kingston\u2019s prestigious boys\u2019 schools.\u201d The Jamaica Gleaner of 30 March 2016, reporting his Silver Musgrave Medal at the Institute of Jamaica, called him \u201cthe past student of Wolmer\u2019s Boys School and the University of the\u201d West Indies. The Governor-General\u2019s Wolmer\u2019s Day proclamation, as the Gleaner printed it on 20 May 2019 and again on 24 May 2024, named him among the schools\u2019 contribution to the creative arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alison Flood, in the <em>Guardian<\/em> of 13 October 2015, recorded the win for <em>A Brief History of Seven Killings<\/em>: James, then 44 and living in Minneapolis, took the \u00a350,000 prize at London\u2019s Guildhall on a unanimous decision. The Booker site describes a 1976 Jamaica in which seven gunmen storm Bob Marley\u2019s house; the singer survives. James dedicated the win to his late father and called the book \u201ca novel of exile.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kei Miller, reviewing the novel in the <em>Guardian<\/em> of 10 December 2014, placed it as James\u2019s third book, after <em>John Crow\u2019s Devil<\/em> and <em>The Book of Night Women<\/em>. The day after the Booker, Miller wrote that the win was \u201cthe first Man Booker prizewinner from the island.\u201d Wright added that James has an English degree from the University of the West Indies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Booker Prizes author page records further work: the American Book Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Award for <em>A Brief History of Seven Killings<\/em>; <em>Black Leopard, Red Wolf<\/em>; <em>Moon Witch, Spider King<\/em>; the HBO \/ Channel 4 series <em>Get Millie Black<\/em>. It names him a professor at Macalester College in St Paul. <em>The Disappearers<\/em> was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026 \u2014 a longlist, not a second win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2015\/oct\/15\/marlon-james-jamaica-booker-homophobic\">The Guardian, Andr\u00e9 Wright<\/a>, 15 October 2015; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2015\/oct\/13\/marlon-james-wins-the-man-booker-prize-2015\">The Guardian, Alison Flood<\/a>, 13 October 2015; <a href=\"https:\/\/jamaica-gleaner.com\/article\/entertainment\/20160330\/marlon-james-receives-official-musgrave-silver-medal\">Jamaica Gleaner, Marlon James receives official Musgrave Silver Medal<\/a>, 30 March 2016; <a href=\"https:\/\/thebookerprizes.com\/the-booker-library\/authors\/marlon-james\">The Booker Prizes, Marlon James<\/a>, author page.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marlon James, a past student of Wolmer\u2019s Boys, is the first Jamaican writer to win the Man Booker Prize. Andr\u00e9 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trust-profiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2532,"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions\/2532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wolmers.org\/trust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}