Marlon James became the first Jamaican winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday with a vivid, violent, exuberant and expletive-laden novel based on the attempted assassination of reggae musician Bob Marley.

Michael Wood, chairman of the judging panel, said A Brief History of Seven Killings was "the most exciting book on the list" and a novel full of the "sheer pleasure" of language. He said it had been the unanimous choice of the five judges.

James was awarded the 50,000 pound ($77,000) prize during a black-tie dinner at London's medieval Guildhall. The 44-year-old author said he almost gave up writing more than a decade ago when his first novel, John Crow's Devil, was rejected by 70 publishers. He said winning the Booker Prize was "surreal", and joked that he would spend the prize money on a tailor-made suit or "every William Faulkner novel in hardcover".