L'Uomo: interview with Marlon James

Every legend is an attempt to explain the unexplainable while conserving elements of the mythological. And now that our lives are surrounded by extreme and often inexplicable natural and social phenomena (even the President of China called Covid-19 “a devil”), we need surprising legends and liberating epics. The traditional ones won’t do, because in increasingly dramatic ways they reveal the germ of inequality and the oppression of minorities, who make up a large part of humanity. Nor can we draw on the new legends inspired by technology, which can foster attitudes of detachment from our senses and our humanity.

Amid this silence of myths and utopias, a new phenomenon is emerging that European history and Judaeo-Christian beliefs have sought to stifle. It is the black, African and Caribbean epic, embodying the imagination, adventures, dreams and heroes that we enslaved or effaced along with the peoples they belonged to. Black music, cinema and literature are winning more rightful acclaim than ever, partly thanks to the principled stands that have been taken since the murder of George Floyd. These works are claiming the freedom to shape the way the narrative of black history and identity is told, while refusing to conform to Western conventions. The result can justifiably be defined as extraordinary. Suffice it to mention one book and one author: the Jamaican Marlon James and the first volume of his African Dark Star trilogy titled Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Revolutionising the canons of fantasy literature and grounded in years of study of pre-colonial African folklore and mythology, the book opens a chasm in our perception of reality and makes us rethink our ideas of the supernatural. Born in 1970 in Kingston, where his parents both worked in the police force, Marlon James is gay and fled his homeland to escape homophobic violence. Having received 78 rejections before publishing his debut novel John Crow’s Devil, James went on to teach and live in Minneapolis (on the same street where Floyd was killed). After his second novel The Book of Night Women, he followed up with A Brief History of Seven Killings, which won him the Man Booker Prize in 2015. The Dark Star trilogy is his latest project, and the film rights to the first instalment have already been purchased by Michael B. Jordan (who played the villain in Black Panther). Narrated by the character of Tracker, who is searching for a missing boy, the book presents a non-Western vision of the African continent in a story that James has described as “an African Game of Thrones”. Here he explains why a black legend of the world is so important.

Were you surprised at the global success of Black Leopard, Red Wolf?
I was fairly prepared for it because it had had some forerunners like Black Panther and the Black Lightning series, as well as comic books promoting diversity. But I didn’t expect to be successful with a novel that’s more than just a white story dressed in black, a brown version of tradition, but a whole mythology and a queer story.

What has been the effect of bringing African folklore to Western attention? 
You learn a lot by abandoning the Judaeo-Christian model of storytelling. For instance, there’s Eshu, a figure in Yoruba culture. To the West, he appears like an African version of the devil, but he’s much more complex. He contains multiple facets. We also tend to think of African countries as homophobic and repressive, but all they do is imitate Christianity. If you look at mythology you discover a number of queer stories, with homosexual marriages, fluid identities and trans protagonists before the West even invented the word. It’s a mythology of diversity, and for me as a queer person, it meant rediscovering myself. Discovering a free vision of the past has changed the way I see my life and the continent I come from. The novel, and the fact that it’s out of control, is the obvious consequence.

Have epics and adventures been colonised by white middle-class males? 
Only to some extent, because other stories have always existed. It’s we readers who have ignored them. We had Ali Baba, Sindbad, Anansi, so the myths were there but they were never raised to the same level of significance as European tales. We had folklore, and now it’s time for a black mythology that presents the relationship with Europe and slavery in a different light. Readers love Black Leopard, Red Wolf because they’re hungry for a different vision.

(Continues)

Opening photograph: BC2: Black-Face-Off Weapon of Resilience 1 by Wilfred Ukpong. Photograph courtesy of Blazing Century Studios in collaboration with Arthouse Foundation Lagos, British Council Lagos, Omenka Gallery Lagos, and Sony Nigeria.

Read the full interview in the October issue of L'Uomo, on newsstands

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