Booker Prize winner Marlon James comes to Coral Gables on Saturday with a novel already drawing some of the strongest notices of his career — and one rooted in the dangers of queer life in the Jamaica where he grew up.
James will discuss The Disappearers, published Sept. 1 by Riverhead Books, in conversation with fellow Jamaican writer and University of Miami English professor Kei Miller. Books & Books is presenting the 5 p.m. event at Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, in partnership with SAVE, the LGBTQ advocacy organization founded in 1993.
The 640-page novel has already been longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize, putting James in contention for the award he won in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings. The Booker shortlist is scheduled to be announced Sept. 22.
A violent night in 1988 Kingston
The Disappearers opens in Kingston in 1988, where eight men who are strangers to one another gather to rehearse a play. They have different reasons for participating but share something that places each of them at risk: they are gay in a society deeply hostile to homosexuality.
A mob attacks the group, beating the men and killing one of them. What follows is less an investigation of the attack itself than of its aftermath — the physical recovery, anger, fear, disappearance and demands for revenge that spread through the survivors’ lives.
The Booker judges described the novel as a confrontation with Jamaican homophobia that follows the men beyond the attack and into the years that follow. James has said the premise grew from reports of a violent episode that was rumored to have occurred but never proved. What interested him most, he told the Booker Prize, was what happened afterward.
That subject is also personal.
James, who grew up gay and closeted in Kingston in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, told The New York Times that the novel concerns “the price you pay, eventually and day to day, for the simple act of being yourself.”
The event’s partnership with SAVE places that conversation alongside the organization’s work closer to home. SAVE describes itself as Florida’s longest-serving organization dedicated to protecting LGBTQ people against discrimination. It has advocated for LGBTQ rights since 1993, including changes to Miami-Dade’s human-rights protections.
A Booker winner returns to Jamaica
James is best known for A Brief History of Seven Killings, his sprawling novel built around the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley and the political violence surrounding it. The book won the 2015 Booker Prize, making James the first Jamaican author to receive the award.
He later turned toward African-inspired fantasy with Black Leopard, Red Wolf, a 2019 National Book Award finalist, and Moon Witch, Spider King. His earlier novels include The Book of Night Women and John Crow’s Devil.
His work has also received the American Book Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. James is a Guggenheim Fellow, and Time named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2019. Born in Jamaica, he now lives in New York City.
With The Disappearers, he returns to the late-20th-century Jamaica of A Brief History of Seven Killings, but through a different part of the country’s history.
The reception has been unusually emphatic. Library Journal and Kirkus have given the book starred reviews, while The New York Times critic Dwight Garner called it a masterpiece and “the novel of the decade.”
Two Jamaican writers in conversation
Miller gives Saturday’s event a second connection to both Jamaica and Coral Gables.
A poet, novelist and essayist, Miller is a professor of English at the University of Miami. His 2014 poetry collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion won the Forward Prize, while his novel Augustown won the 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
That makes Saturday’s program more than a conventional author stop: two Jamaican writers whose work has examined identity, history, place and the Caribbean will be discussing a novel centered on a part of Jamaican life James has said fiction can help bring into the open.
James’s Coral Gables appearance is part of a national book tour. He appears in Gainesville the night before the event and continues to Greenville, South Carolina, Brooklyn and Washington in the days afterward.
Books & Books is offering a $32 ticket, plus tax, that admits two people and includes one copy of The Disappearers. A limited number of free tickets admit one person but do not include the book.
If you go…
An Evening with Marlon James in conversation with Kei Miller, Saturday, Sept. 5, 5 p.m., Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Blvd. A $32 ticket plus tax admits two guests and includes one copy of The Disappearers; limited free admission is available for one guest without a book.
