Marlon James was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1970. He studied literature at the University of the West Indies. He worked in advertising for more than a decade, as a copywriter, art director and graphic designer. He took a writing workshop in Kingston, Jamaica, and later enrolled in a writing program at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania. His first novel, John Crow's Devil, was published in 2005. His other novels include The Book of Night Women and A Brief History of Seven Killings, which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015. He teaches at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.