A Brief History Of Seven Killings, an epic re-telling of the attempted assassination of reggae legend Bob Marley, written by Marlon James has won the Man Booker Prize.

Author James, 44, is the first Jamaican to win coveted literary prize in its 47-year history.

The 686-page novel, which includes large sections written in Jamaican patois, covers the attempted murder of the reggae superstar in 1976 and the rise of the drug trade on the island.

It is set in Kingston, Jamaica, and has over 75 characters, voices and witnesses including FBI and CIA agents, killers, ghosts, beauty queens and Keith Richards’ drug dealer.

Marlon James with his book A Brief History of Seven Killings
Marlon James is the first Jamaican to win literary prize in its 47-year history (Frank Augstein/AP)

The judges unanimously picked the book as the winner after “more than one but less than two hours of deliberation,” according to Michael Wood, chairman of the judging panel.

The book is loaded with Jamaican patois, bad language and a testing subject matter but Wood, urged people to read it – even though he might not give it to his own mother to read.

He said: “I think there is a kind of excitement right from the beginning. I think (James) has thought I am not trying to rub people’s noses in difficult terms, I am trying to get them to think about things that are actually out there.

“I am going to give them ways in and I am going to give them voices they can listen to. A lot of it is very, very funny and a lot of it is very human.

“It is not an easy read. It is a big book. There is some tough stuff and there is a lot of swearing but it is not a difficult book to approach. It is not a difficult book to get into.”

The front cover of A Brief History Of Seven Killings
The book contains one entire chapter written in Jamaican patois (Four Colman Getty/PA)

The New York Times described the book as “like a Tarantino remake of ‘The Harder They Come’ but with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a script by Oliver Stone and William Faulkner…epic in every sense of that word”.

Wood said the book was about social conditions.

He joked that his mother probably would not have got past “the first few pages on the basis of the swearing”.

James was born in Kingston, Jamaica, but currently lives in Minneapolis, and this is his third novel.

Bob Marley performing on stage in 1979
Bob Marley is referred to as “The Singer” throughout the book (AP)

James was presented with a trophy by the Duchess of Cornwall at a glittering ceremony at the Guildhall in central London.

He also received the £50,000 cheque gets a designer bound edition of his book and a further £2,500 for being shortlisted.
The judges started off with 156 books before whittling it down to a shortlist of six finalists.

Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, who had been the bookmakers’ hot favourite, had made the final cut along with fellow American Anne Tyler for A Spool Of Blue Thread.

Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year Of The Runaways was also a finalist along with British compatriot Tom McCarthy for Satin Island and Nigeria’s Chigozie Obioma for The Fishermen.

Author Hanya Yanagihara poses with her book 'A Little Life' on stage at the Royal Festival Hall
Hanya Yanagihara had been favourite to win (Frank Augstein/AP)

This is the second year the prize has been open to writers of any nationality writing in English and published in the UK having previously been restricted to the UK and Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe.

The prize comes with the added fillip of a guaranteed boost to sales, with last year’s winner, The Narrow Road To The Deep North by Richard Flanagan, selling almost 800,000 copies worldwide.