Marlon James: The Disappearers
Author Talks
Join us for a special celebration of Marlon James’ The Disappearers, one of the most talked-about books of the year and a finalist for the Booker Prize.
In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them.
One night the men are savagely beaten and one of them is killed. As their bodies heal, the survivors begin to face the hatred and contempt that the violence laid bare. Some try to ignore what happened. Others double down on retribution. Some disappear completely. In this spellbinding novel, Marlon James has written a propulsive crime story that is also a deeply human account of connection and acceptance. Full of fascinating characters, biting humor, and unapologetic sex, The Disappearers is both a thrilling page-turner and a finely etched portrait of queer life that was hailed in The New York Times as “the novel of decade, if not the century.”
For this special Author Talks during Second Sundays, James will be joined in conversation by Colin Channer. Books will be available for sale, and a signing with the writer will follow his talk. The celebration will conclude with a special DJ set and musical performance from Christopher Udemezue (aka Neon Christina), toasting queer Jamaica and The Disappearers.
Marlon James is the Booker Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling author of A Brief History of Seven Killings; the bestselling and National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf; as well as the bestselling Moon Witch, Spider King; The Book of Night Women; and John Crow’s Devil. In addition to the Booker Prize, James’s novels have won the American Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, and have been finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the NAACP Image Award. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and named in 2019 one of Time magazine’s one hundred most influential people in the world, James lives in New York City.
Colin Channer was born in Jamaica and is an Associate Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. His ten books as a fiction writer, poet, and editor include Console, Kingston Noir, and Waiting in Vain. He was a co-founder of the beloved Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica, and his prose and poetry have appeared in publications including The Atlantic, Bomb, The New Yorker, The Poetry Review (UK), Conjunctions, and Prairie Schooner. As a monologist he has appeared at venues such as Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, The Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture at Brooklyn Public Library, and The Bowery Poetry Club, among many other venues.
Christopher Udemezue (aka Neon Christina) is an artist, DJ, and cultural activist who has shown work and performed at a wide range of galleries and museums including the New Museum, Queens Museum of Art, MoMa, PS1, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Mercer Union, Recess Gallery, and the Anat Ebgi Gallery in Los Angeles. Born in Long Island to Jamaican parents, Udemezue is the founder of RAGGA NYC, a platform, party and art collective that connects a growing network of queer Caribbean artists and allies working across a wide range of disciplines—including visual art, fashion, poetry, and more—to explore how race, sexuality, gender, heritage, and history inform their work and their lives.