The beauty of any piece of art lies in its ability to suggest a multiple level of connotations to its readers. With the advent of Modernism and the subsequent avalanche of technology, the waves of Postmodernism could not be long restrained. Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings incorporates all the basic tenants of Modernism and Postmodernism to make this new age novel one of the most poignant representative work of the times. Based on the real history of the Shower Posse, who had their rise since the early 60s in Kingston and gradually spread to America where by the 1980s they had the power to capture the most of the trade in Miami and New York, The Brief History of Seven Killings is not a mere jotting down of facts. James with his deft handling of the 
pen makes them form an alliance with Griselda Blanco of the Medellin ¬cartel. The partnership echoed another one, when Jamaica’s prime minister Edward Seaga and his Jamaica Labour Party used the gang as enforcers in the slums of Tivoli Gardens (called Copenhagen City in James’s novel), which became that party’s fief. Both the J.L.P. and their rival party, the P.N.P. (People’s National Party), had armed gangs in their service, for whoever controlled the slums controlled Kingston, and whoever won the Kingston vote won the nation’s elections. This turf war led to spiralling poverty and savage violence. It was the kind of trauma described and transmuted into song by the great Bob Marley (referred to in the novel as the Singer), who in 1976, amid unprecedented bloodshed, announced a free concert to promote peace in Kingston. (Marley was himself caught between the J.L.P. and P.N.P., along with their criminal gangs.) At the same time, outside forces including the C.I.A., anti-Castro Cubans and the Colombian drug cartels were converging on Jamaica with money and guns.
What is interesting to note is that though James structures his novel on actual history he never fails to make to make it his-story. The characterisation, the use of colloquial language, the deft handling of the narrative and not to forget the delineation of the plot structure is what makes the novel an interesting read.
Although apparently a novel of murder, killings, bloodsheds, gory, avarice, greed, lust and struggle the novel is a macrocosmic representation of the greater politics at work in our life and they excruciating influence in our everyday struggle. Rightly shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2015 the novel is not a simple coffee table read. It is suggestive of multiple power struggles and power Structures that are at work in our everyday life. Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings thus is instrumental in breaking the path of New Literature in English. James is successful in portraying what one of his characters observes lately in the course of his novel: “Well, at some point you gotta expand on a story,” thus making the novel shine in its own right.
Book Details:-
| Author: | Marlon James | ||
| Publisher: | Oneworld Publications | Publishing Year: | 2015 |
| ISBN-13: | 9781780746357 | ISBN-10: | 1780746350 |
| Cover: | Paperback | No. Of Pages: | 704 |
| MRP: | Rs 599 | Buy From: | Flipkart.com Amazon.in  |
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