Brooklyn, N.Y. – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement to congratulate author Marlon James, whose novel A Brief History of Seven Killings was awarded the prestigious 2015 Man Booker Prize, the first book by a Jamaican author to have been shortlisted for the prize.

“Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1970, Marlon James has developed into a writer of unparalleled ambition – ambition he has fulfilled in such novels as John Crow’s Devil, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, The Book of Night Women, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and now A Brief History of Seven Killings, also a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize. A graduate of the University of the West Indies and Wilkes University and currently a professor of creative writing at Macalester College, Marlon James writes in a style as expansive, indeed as epic, as culture itself, exploring the intersections of politics, music, business, and personal relationships to consider the nature of civil society. I congratulate Marlon James on his success, which I am certain will continue in his career as an artist.” 

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the Committee on Ethics and the Committee of Small Business in the House of Representatives, proudly represents Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, Gerritsen Beach, Madison, Midwood, Park Slope, Flatlands, Prospect Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Sheepshead Bay, and Windsor Terrace.