Marlon James: ‘Ultimately, I’m a rock kid’

The Man Booker winner’s 6 Music DJ set includes songs by Black Sabbath and Sonic Youth – a far cry from the conventional choices of most literary musos

For a Man Booker winner, listing much-loved music on Sunday lunchtime radio is one of the prize’s perks: you typically undergo a mild grilling by Desert Island Discs’ Kirsty Young or Private Passions’ Michael Berkeley a few years after winning, and a selection unfolds that tends to be either all classical (eg AS Byatt), a mixture of classical and jazz (Julian Barnes), or similar but including one or two token pop or rock selections (10cc for Howard Jacobson, the Platters for Margaret Atwood) as if to prove that you were young once.

The way Marlon James, Jamaica’s first winner, handles the opportunity is markedly different as he presents 6 Music’s Paperback Writers – a solo DJ set, rather than an interview-based programme, already available online – less than a month after collecting the award. Not only are there no jazzmen or orchestras, but he strongly leans towards guitar bands (“ultimately I’m a rock kid”) rather than music with lyrics and voices uppermost.

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