marlon james is something of a rockstarwriter an aura thats grown since he won the booker prize last year for a brief history of seven killings which placed singer bob marley at the heart of jamaican political intrigue of the 1970s the writer tells joeanna rebello why questions of race and language run through his narrative veinsyouve called out racism in films society and politics have you encountered it in publishing for me no ive always had openminded and fearless publishers whove been committed to diversity and voices of colour but there are still narrow perceptions of what people read and want in fiction we still have this idea that the reader of colour doesnt read literary fiction its racist to think black people are only going to read a certain type of literature racism is not malevolent but systemic and if you think of it like this a whole other view comes to fore theres a huge underestimation of the reader and writer of colour publishers will typically ask a writer to insert a sympathetic white character i wasnt asked to but i got a lot of pleasure subverting it the white characters in my books are threedimensional and real but also a little clueless nobody was going to come to save the jamaicans in my book but i will have them try i did however pay the price for writing the stories i did my first novel was turned down by almost every publisher in the us because they thought there was nothing in the story anyone in america could identify with were still dealing with a denial of voices of colour not only in literature but in films too like the oscarssowhite thing will smiths boycott of the oscars has people saying hes just mad because he didnt get nominated for concussion but black people can have more than one thought at the same time people we think racism is uncle bubba the redneck lynching black people but no in a brief history you write you ever feel like home is the one place you cant go back to turns out you yourself are returning home for the first time after winning the booker has your homosexuality kept you from going back sooner in jamaica homosexuality is a punishable crime i dont know if i can be fully myself there but that is a loaded answer because there are quite a few queer people in jamaica who are living full livesgranted a lot of them are protected by class we did have a pride this year but it was basically a flash mob on the one hand i thought it was a huge step but on the other i thought you had to come out flash your rainbow flags stay for 60 seconds jump in a car and vanish and make sure you have an exit because if you get blocked youll have a mob in 10 seconds so on the one hand its great we