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"Oh my god, oh wow," James said as he took to the podium in dreadlocks and a tuxedo after being announced the winner at the ceremony in London.
"This is so sort of ridiculous I think I'm going to wake up tomorrow and it didn't happen," he added, as he dedicated the award to his late father.
Set in James' birthplace of Kingston, the 686-page crime tale traces the rise of the drug trade on the Caribbean island and contains a chapter written in Jamaican patois.
Based on real events, it recounts how Marley and his entourage were attacked just before a concert in December 1976, referring to the reggae superstar as "The Singer" throughout.
"It is a crime novel that moves beyond the world of crime and takes us deep into a recent history we know far too little about," said chair of judges Michael Wood after the winner was announced.
"It moves at a terrific pace and will come to be seen as a classic of our times."
Wood praised the book's "startling" range of voices and ability to range from early crack gangs in Miami and New York to CIA intervention in Jamaica.
The New York Times had described the book as "epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex".
Britain's Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the wife of Prince Charles, presented James with the prize at a glittering ceremony.
- Unanimous choice -
"A Brief History of Seven Killings" was chosen unanimously by the judges after less than two hours of deliberation.
It beat bookmaker's favourite, US author Hanya Yanagihara's "A Little Life", a disturbing tale of male friendship with graphic details of child sex abuse, which had been the 6/4 favourite to win.
Also shortlisted were Briton Sunjeev Sahota's "The Year of the Runaways", "The Fishermen" by Nigeria's Chigozie Obioma, American author Anne Tyler's "A Spool of Blue Thread" and British writer Tom McCarthy's "Satin Island".
James, who now lives in Minneapolis in the United States, paid tribute to former winner Salman Rushdie, who took the prize for "Midnight's Children" in 1981.
Rushdie had previously said his days of winning were "gone", telling the Daily Telegraph on Monday that there "seems to be a desire to move away from established names" in the award.
The Man Booker Prize was previously open only to fiction written in English by authors from Britain, Ireland, the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe but this is the second year it has been open to all nationalities.
Last year's winner, Australian Richard Flanagan, has sold 800,000 copies of his "The Narrow Road To The Deep North" to date.
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"This is so sort of ridiculous I think I'm going to wake up tomorrow and it didn't happen," he added, as he dedicated the award to his late father.
Set in James' birthplace of Kingston, the 686-page crime tale traces the rise of the drug trade on the Caribbean island and contains a chapter written in Jamaican patois.
Based on real events, it recounts how Marley and his entourage were attacked just before a concert in December 1976, referring to the reggae superstar as "The Singer" throughout.
"It is a crime novel that moves beyond the world of crime and takes us deep into a recent history we know far too little about," said chair of judges Michael Wood after the winner was announced.
"It moves at a terrific pace and will come to be seen as a classic of our times."
Wood praised the book's "startling" range of voices and ability to range from early crack gangs in Miami and New York to CIA intervention in Jamaica.
The New York Times had described the book as "epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex".
Britain's Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the wife of Prince Charles, presented James with the prize at a glittering ceremony.
- Unanimous choice -
"A Brief History of Seven Killings" was chosen unanimously by the judges after less than two hours of deliberation.
It beat bookmaker's favourite, US author Hanya Yanagihara's "A Little Life", a disturbing tale of male friendship with graphic details of child sex abuse, which had been the 6/4 favourite to win.
Also shortlisted were Briton Sunjeev Sahota's "The Year of the Runaways", "The Fishermen" by Nigeria's Chigozie Obioma, American author Anne Tyler's "A Spool of Blue Thread" and British writer Tom McCarthy's "Satin Island".
James, who now lives in Minneapolis in the United States, paid tribute to former winner Salman Rushdie, who took the prize for "Midnight's Children" in 1981.
Rushdie had previously said his days of winning were "gone", telling the Daily Telegraph on Monday that there "seems to be a desire to move away from established names" in the award.
The Man Booker Prize was previously open only to fiction written in English by authors from Britain, Ireland, the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe but this is the second year it has been open to all nationalities.
Last year's winner, Australian Richard Flanagan, has sold 800,000 copies of his "The Narrow Road To The Deep North" to date.
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