冈本视频

A brilliant reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn鈥攖old from the enslaved Jim鈥檚 point of view.

James book cover

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. Thus begins their dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River.

Percival Everett headshot

Percival Everett is the author of more than 30 books, including So Much Blue, Telephone, Dr. No and The Trees, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. His novel Erasure was made into the major film American Fiction. He is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. 

Because we agree wholeheartedly with Ann Patchett, who calls James 鈥渁 powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history.鈥

鈥淢y interest lies not in questions about identity or expression, but in the actual logical construction of meaning,鈥 says Percival Everett on the Living Writers podcast. Listen to the whole three-question interview .

Percival Everett at 冈本视频

Join us in person or on Thursday, Sept. 19, for Percival Everett鈥檚 reading and book-signing. All Living Writers events take place at 4:30 ET in Love Auditorium. Refreshments available.

Beyond the Book

  • critic Dwight Garner calls James 鈥渁 tangled and subversive homage, a labor of rough love.鈥
  • 鈥淏y rewriting, reimagining, and reinventing Huckleberry Finn, Mr. Everett has breathed new life into Twain鈥檚 novel,鈥 .
  • 鈥淚 read Huck Finn 15 times in a row to write James,鈥 says Mr. Everett in this

 

鈥淲hite people often spent time admiring their survival of one thing or another. I imagined it was because so often they had no need to survive, but only to live.鈥

 

Percival Everett, James