Marlon James

“Nobody falls that way without being pushed. I know. And I know how it feels and looks, a body that falls fighting…

— Marlon James

“People think blood red, but blood don't got no colour. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream…

— Marlon James

The fiction writer in me likes gaps in stories because I can jump into that gap and try to suggest something.

— Marlon James

In 1976, Rastafarians were one of the most violated, persecuted groups in Jamaica. They could be beaten within an inch of their…

— Marlon James

“I miss you, sister," he say. "I miss me too," she say. Always too clever but not clever enough to know when…

— Marlon James

“Devil has his part to play.”

— Marlon James

What I find, particularly with young writers and readers, is that they don't want complicated feelings.

— Marlon James

At 28 years old, seven years out of college, I was so convinced that my voice outed me as a fag that…

— Marlon James

“The white man say we’re fighting for freedom from totalitarianism, terrorism and tyranny, but nobody know what he mean. I”

— Marlon James

“Nineteen seventy-six come and bring an election with it. The man who bring guns to the ghetto made it clear, that there…

— Marlon James

“She not black, she mulatto. Mulatto, mulatto, mulatto. Maybe she be family to both and to hurt white man just as bad…

— Marlon James

“Shiny like new zinc holding up a roof or a fence right beside old zinc, the material itself a living history of…

— Marlon James

I'm really interested in how non-American countries process race.

— Marlon James

“People think it way past the time when anybody can remember who start things first, but don’t get the history of the…

— Marlon James

“We don't own truth. Truth is truth and nothing you can do about it even if you hide it, or kill it,…

— Marlon James

“Then the white man talk about how some people trying to use smooth talk to win people over and how totalitarianism always…

— Marlon James

“the ghetto should never come with a photo. The Third World slum is a nightmare that defies beliefs or facts, even the…

— Marlon James

“Jah know, sometimes I don’t learn till too late, and to know something too late? Well is better you never know as…

— Marlon James

If your depiction of loss doesn't make the reader feel loss, then you didn't depict it right.

— Marlon James

“But he starting to confuse representing people with owning them, and soon even he going need a reckoning.”

— Marlon James

I come from a very big family from every economic background. Some of the streets I talk about, I've actually walked on…

— Marlon James

A lot of time, I'd spell things in standard English instead of phonetically because I want people to understand what's going on.…

— Marlon James

“This is a story of several killings, of boys who meant nothing to a world still spinning,”

— Marlon James

I think that’s what Toni Morrison and Alice Walker understand, the secret language of women. That it’s not a secret at all;…

— Marlon James

In creative writing, I teach that characters arise out of our need for them.

— Marlon James