Marlon James Builds His Own Damn Universe

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

When the cast of the film “The Hobbit” was first announced, Marlon James was dismayed—though hardly surprised—by how white it was. A long-standing complaint of black fans of fantasy is that authors can imagine dwarves and elves and orcs, but not black characters. “I got so tired of this whole question of inclusion, and the backlash against asking to be included,” James tells the staff writer Jia Tolentino, “that I said, ‘I’m going to make my own damn universe.’ ” That was one origin point of James’s “Dark Star” trilogy, which he describes as “an African ‘Game of Thrones.’ ” The first book, which is about to be published, is called “Black Leopard, Red Wolf,” and it centers on the search for a missing boy by a disparate cast of characters. Another origin point for him was the TV show “The Affair”; James borrowed the structural device of a story related by multiple characters whose perspectives don’t quite add up. James talks about writing fantasy from a Caribbean perspective, where “magical realism” may not seem so magical. Plus, a successful C.E.O. says that activist investors’ quest for one quick stock bump after another is wrecking companies and eroding American competitiveness.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.
0:09.2	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. A brief history of seven killings is a work of fiction.
0:15.7	But it also follows the contours of history. It includes an assassination attempt against Bob Marley in the 70s. It includes
0:22.1	the CIA in Jamaican politics and South American drug cartels, the crack epidemic in the 80s,
0:28.3	and a lot more. It's a sprawling, ambitious, eventful book. And in 2015, it won the prestigious
0:35.1	Man Booker Prize for its author, Marlon James.
0:38.9	That was the first time that a Jamaican writer had ever won the award.
0:42.7	And shortly after he won the prize, James told an interviewer that his next project was going to be epic.
0:49.3	Literally.
0:50.2	He was going to write a three-volume fantasy epic that he described as an African Game of Thrones.
0:56.2	Over the last few years, he's delved into African folk tales and history.
1:00.3	He's revisited the canonical fantasy novels of Tolkien.
1:03.9	And as always, he's been absorbed in pop culture and music of all kinds.
1:08.3	Marlon James calls his series The Dark Star Trilogy.
1:11.8	The first book has just been published
1:13.4	and it's called Black Leopard, Red Wolf.
1:18.3	Leopard got to me before I got to the river.
1:21.3	Still on four paws, a dead antelope in his mouth.
1:25.0	That night he watched in disgust as I cooked my portion. He had changed back
1:29.7	into a man and was on two legs, but eating the antelope leg raw, ripping away the skin with his teeth,
1:36.4	sinking into flesh and licking the blood off his lips. I wanted to enjoy flesh the way he
1:42.0	enjoyed flesh. My burned and black leg disgusted me as well.
	...

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