On Tuesday, Marlon James became the first Jamaican writer to win the Man Booker Prize in the award’s 47-year history for A Brief History of Seven Killings, an “expansive and near-mythic survey of his homeland.” Revisit our interview with the author here.

“I wanted a picture of Jamaica that isn’t in books, and certainly not in novels.” Author Marlon James set out to depict a thoroughly vibrant portrait of the Jamaica he knew: one fissured by drug warfare and dirty politics, but a country plentiful in culture and history. The result was A Brief History of Seven Killings, an expansive and near-mythic survey of his homeland. It is, without question, one of 2014’s best books.