Marlon James, Marilyn Chin among winners of Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Novelist Marlon James and poet Marilyn Chin are among this year’s winners of the Anisfield-Wolf (AN’-is-feeld) Book Awards, given for literature that “confronts racism and examines diversity.”

James was cited Wednesday for his novel based on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, “A Brief History of Seven Killings.” Chin was honoured for her multicultural collection “Hard Love.”

Also chosen by the Cleveland Foundation were poet Jericho Brown for “The New Testament” and historian Richard S. Dunn for “A Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life and Labor in Jamaica and Virginia.” Slavery scholar David Brion Davis received a lifetime achievement prize.

The awards were founded 80 years ago. Previous winners include the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Toni Morrison and Nigerian playwright and poet Wole Soyinka.