james_percival_everett
2025 Longlist

James

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Percival
Everett

PERCIVAL EVERETT is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, writer Danzy Senna, and their children.

 

PERCIVAL EVERETT is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, writer Danzy Senna, and their children.

 

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NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

The book is a re-envisioning of the novel Huckleberry Finn; The story is retold from the point of view of James, the slave, who accompanied Huck. The book is masterfully written and can stand on it’s own. (Miami-Dade Public Library) Percival Everett has done something truly remarkable with James, turning the nearly 150-year-old story of Huckleberry Finn into an even greater retelling from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. With his trademark wit, Everett displays the courage, ingenuity, and intelligence of enslaved folks while turning the classic adventure story into an odyssey of liberation. Though Jim and Huck experience many of the same events as in the original, the shift in narration allows both Huck and the reader to see the falsities of enslavement and white supremacy. (The Seattle Public Library)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
19/03/2024
Country
United States
Original Language
English
Publisher
Doubleday, Penguin Random House US
Borrow this book from Libraries Ireland

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