Bill Chats: Marlon James

Legendary choreographer, National Medal of Arts (2013) MacArthur Fellow, and artistic director of New York Live Arts, Bill T. Jones comes together with the esteemed Marlon James—Man Booker prize winner and author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, John Crow’s Devil, and most recently Black Leopard, Red Wolf.
Jones and James will discuss the function of writing in today’s instant communication style and social media, how history informs or provokes James’ work and the phantasmagorical elements that help shape it. Discourse on Jones’ and James’ respective crafts will include gay esthetic and how live performance may inform James’ creative process.

Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. His most recent novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the first novel in James’s Dark Star trilogy, was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award. His previous novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, was the winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, The American Book Award, and The Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize for fiction. He is also the author of the novels John Crow’s Devil and The Book of Night Women, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.