Marlon James became the first Jamaican-born author to win the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 2015 with his novel “A Brief History of Seven Killings.’’ The author, however, left Jamaica 10 years ago to teach English at Macalester College in Minnesota, where he’s yet to adjust to the winters. “No one does, not even the people who live here,’’ he said. James will read from his work at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Brown University’s List Art Building in Providence. The event is free.
BOOKS: What are you reading currently?
JAMES: I’m reading Rose Tremain’s “Restoration’’ and Ben Okri’s “The Famished Road.’’ The Tremain novel I had heard of but stayed away from because it is a historical novel. Even though I write historical fiction, I think it’s the most fraught genre. It’s so easy to fall into sentimentality or revisionist history. “Restoration’’ is wonderfully complex and hilarious. It’s about the period right after the British got tired of beheading kings. The Okri novel moves in the way ancient African storytelling works. It makes you reconsider what is narrative.
BOOKS: How did you get turned on to these books?
JAMES: “The Famished Road’’ because it won the Booker. I’ve been on a mission to read the Booker long list as well as the short list.
BOOKS: What authors have you discovered by reading the Booker finalists?
JAMES: Timothy Mo, for one, Anita Brookner, and Hilary Mantel. “Wolf Hall’’ is why my standard for historical novels is so high.
BOOKS: Do you read book reviews?
JAMES: No. I have a problem with reviews, and there is some spectacular work going on, but I can’t get with how Americans review books, with this plot-summary business. I don’t want to know what is going to happen. I don’t even read the blurbs on dust jackets now because they tell you too much.
BOOKS: Are there Caribbean authors you wish were better known?
JAMES: All of them. Michelle Cliff; Kei Miller is phenomenal; Patricia Duncker, who’s taught quite a bit in gender and queer studies but even Jamaicans don’t know her; Wilson Harris; John Hearne, and Louis Simpson.
BOOKS: Did moving here change you as a reader?
JAMES: What changed was access. I could read a review in the morning and have the book in my hand in that afternoon as opposed to waiting nine weeks for the book to reach the bookstore in Jamaica, if it ever even makes it.
BOOKS: Did you binge read?
JAMES: Nah, I binge bought. There was a bookstore four or five blocks down the street. I have three libraries now. I primarily read fiction, followed by nonfiction, mostly history and biography, and then poetry. I tend to read about medieval history a lot and Britain, so lots of Dan Jones. If a book is about the Middle Ages or the Dark Ages I’ve probably read it.
BOOKS: What about the medieval era grabs you?
JAMES: I’m very interested in how civilization picks up the pieces and rebuilds after it is destroyed. I’m also a fantasy geek, so I’m fascinated by sorcery, myths, and legends. I still read fairy tales and fantasy novels, stuff like “The Mists of the Avalon’’ by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I have a soft spot for Vikings. I have “The Long Ships’’ by Frans G. Bengtsson, which I recommend to anybody who is trying to get boys to read.
BOOKS: What are you going to read next?
JAMES: I’m going to read Lawrence Norfolk’s novel, “John Saturnall’s Feast.’’ I don’t know if Americans know him at all.
BOOKS: What is that novel about?
JAMES: I don’t know. I didn’t read any of the blurbs. I’m also going to read this history of the Hundred Years War by Jonathan Sumption, which has four volumes, each of which is hundreds of pages. It will take forever.
BOOKS: What’s the longest book you’ve ever read?
JAMES: It might have been the James Clavell books back in the ’80s, like “Shogun’’ and “King Rat,’’ which I read when I was 12. I felt like a big man when I finished those books.
AMY SUTHERLAND
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