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    James (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

    A Novel

    Author Percival Everett
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    Paperback
    $20.00 US
    | $28.99 CAN
    Knopf | Vintage
    On sale Apr 21, 2026 | 320 Pages | 9780593686867
    Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
    Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies

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    PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view • In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg

    KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more.

    "Genius"—The Atlantic • "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."—Chicago Tribune • "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."—The Boston Globe • "Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."—The New York Times

    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 until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. 

    Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.
    Chapter 2

    That evening I sat down with Lizzie and six other children in our cabin and gave a language lesson. These were indispensable. Safe movement through the world depended on mastery of language, fluency. The young ones sat on the packed-dirt floor and I was on one of our two homemade stools. The hole in the roof pulled the smoke from the fire that burned in the middle of the shack.

    “Papa, why do we have to learn this?”

    “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” I said. “The only ones who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us. Perhaps I should say ‘when they don’t feel superior.’ So, let’s pause to review some of the basics.”

    “Don’t make eye contact,” a boy said.

    “Right, Virgil.”

    “Never speak first,” a girl said.

    “That’s correct, February,” I said.

    Lizzie looked at the other children and then back to me. “Never address any subject directly when talking to another slave,” she said.

    “What do we call that?” I asked.

    Together they said, “Signifying.”

    “Excellent.” They were happy with themselves, and I let that feeling linger. “Let’s try some situational translations. Something extreme first. You’re walking down the street and you see that Mrs. Holiday’s kitchen is on fire. She’s standing in her yard, her back to her house, unaware. How do you tell her?”

    “Fire, fire,” January said.

    “Direct. And that’s almost correct,” I said.

    The youngest of them, lean and tall five-year-old Rachel, said, “Lawdy, missum! Looky dere.”

    “Perfect,” I said. “Why is that correct?”

    Lizzie raised her hand. “Because we must let the whites be the ones who name the trouble.”

    “And why is that?” I asked.

    February said, “Because they need to know everything before us. Because they need to name everything.”

    “Good, good. You all are really sharp today. Okay, let’s imagine now that it’s a grease fire. She’s left bacon unattended on the stove. Mrs. Holiday is about to throw water on it. What do you say? Rachel?”

    Rachel paused. “Missums, that water gone make it wurs!”

    “Of course, that’s true, but what’s the problem with that?”

    Virgil said, “You’re telling her she’s doing the wrong thing.”

    I nodded. “So, what should you say?”

    Lizzie looked at the ceiling and spoke while thinking it through. “Would you like for me to get some sand?”

    “Correct approach, but you didn’t translate it.”

    She nodded. “Oh, Lawd, missums ma’am, you wan fo me to gets some sand?”

    “Good.”

    “‘Gets some’ is hard to say.” This from Glory, the oldest child. “The s’s.”

    “That’s true,” I said. “And it’s okay to trip over it. In fact, it’s good. You wan fo me to ge-gets s-s-some s-sand, Missum Holiday?”

    “What if they don’t understand?” Lizzie asked.

    “That’s okay. Let them work to understand you. Mumble sometimes so they can have the satisfaction of telling you not to mumble. They enjoy the correction and thinking you’re stupid. Remember, the more they choose to not want to listen, the more we can say to one another around them.”

    “Why did God set it up like this?” Rachel asked. “With them as masters and us as slaves?”

    “There is no God, child. There’s religion but there’s no God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward in the end. However, it apparently doesn’t say anything about their punishment. But when we’re around them, we believe in God. Oh, Lawdy Lawd, we’s be believin’. Religion is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when convenient.”

    “There must be something,” Virgil said.

    “I’m sorry, Virgil. You might be right. There might be some higher power, children, but it’s not their white God. However, the more you talk about God and Jesus and heaven and hell, the better they feel.”

    The children said together, “And the better they feel, the safer we are.”

    “February, translate that.”

    “Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.”

    “Nice.”
    Copyright © 2024 by Percival Everett. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
    • WINNER | 2025
      Audie Awards
    • WINNER | 2025
      National Book Award
    • WINNER | 2025
      Pulitzer Prize (Fiction)
    • WINNER | 2024
      L.A. Times Book Prize (Fiction)
    • FINALIST | 2025
      Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction
    • AWARD | 2025
      British Book Award - Fiction Book of the Year
    • LONGLIST | 2025
      PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
    A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION

    NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AND VANITY FAIR, AMONG OTHERS...

    “The cult favorite author’s electric new work. . . James completely reimagines one-half of Finn’s famous duo, elevating him from unwitting sidekick to reluctant hero. . . Everett brings that laser-sharp wit to James, creating a radical new American adventure.”
    —W Magazine

    “James     offers page-turning excitement but also off-kilter philosophical picaresque. . . Gripping, painful, funny, horrifying, this is multi-level entertainment, a consummate performance to the last."
    —The Guardian

    “Blasted clean of Twain’s characterization, Jim emerges here as a man of great dignity, altruism, and intelligence. . . Clever, soulful, and full of righteous rage, [Jim’s] long-silenced voice resounds through this remarkable novel. Subversive and thrilling, James is destined to become a modern classic.”
    —Esquire

    “[A] careful and thought-provoking auditing of Huckleberry Finn. . . [James is] a kind of commentary or midrash, broadening our understanding of an endangered classic by bringing out the tragedy behind the comic facade. And that is no small thing. I expect that James will be spoken of as a repudiation of Huckleberry Finn, but a book like this can only be written in a spirit of engaged devotion. More than a correction, it’s a rescue mission. And maybe this time it will work.”
    —The Wall Street Journal

    “Heir to Mark Twain’s satirical vision, Everett turns a boyhood memoir into a neo-fugitive slave narrative thriller. . . Using erasure, Everett has produced a daring emendation. Redacting swaths of Huck Finn, he’s revealed another code: the untranslated story of James’s self-emancipation. . . James is a provocative, enlightening work of literary art.”
    —The Boston Globe

    “[Everett is a] prolific genius. . . A literary jukebox. . . If anyone is poised to casually (after all, he has bills) write a masterpiece that not only becomes instant canon but also sets a brush fire to the current ones it stands upon, it’s Everett. And that’s exactly what he’s done with James.”
    —Elle

    "Huck Finn’ Is a Masterpiece. This Retelling Just Might Be, Too."
    —The New York Times

    “[A] sly response to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. . . While The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn lampooned American society through the naiveté of its young narrator, James critiques White racism with the sharp insight of a character who’s felt the lash...What’s most striking, ultimately, is the way James both honors and interrogates Huck Finn, along with the nation that reveres it.”
    —The Washington Post

    "Percival Everett [is] our current Great American Novelist. . . [JAMES] is a masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own. . . I almost cannot imagine a future where teachers assign The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn without also assigning James alongside it. . . Everett is one of the most, if not the most interesting writers working today.”
    —The Chicago Tribune

    “To call James a retelling would be an injustice. Everett sends Mark Twain’s classic through the looking glass. What emerges is no longer a children’s book, but a blood-soaked historical novel stripped of all ornament. . . Genius.”
    —The Atlantic

    "Once you’ve picked up Everett’s James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you’ll know that only Everett could take on the task of allowing Mark Twain’s character Jim to show what was missing from the original story.”
    —The Los Angeles Times

    “Percival Everett continues his blistering pace of unforgettable fiction with James. . . Everett infuses this well-known story with a refreshingly contemporary jolt of agency, intelligence, and compassion, bringing new life to the character of Jim and the American epic.”
    —Chicago Review of Books

    “Using nuance and vulnerability to emphasize Jim’s humanity, [Everett leaves a] stamp on the literary landscape as he dismantles the stereotypes of the enslaved humans depicted in Twain’s classic. . . Percival Everett has accomplished more than humanizing a marginalized voice. He has, once again, delivered a seminal work of literary reparation.”
    —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    "Everett’s James isn’t out to displace Twain’s book. It’s carrying out a bolder, more ingenuous, and, characteristic of its author, more subversive agenda...Everett endows Jim with greater dimension and nuance than his original creator did. Huckleberry Finn provided Jim with courage, dignity, and virtue. James bestows upon him the greater, if more complicated, privilege of full (if not yet unfettered) humanity."
    —The New Republic

    “Playful and resonant. . . Everett has plenty of derisive fun here, dissecting and subverting damaging stereotypes. . . For a writer who often plays by few rules, Everett has drawn on what he knows best here – that freedom can be won, one word at a time. Add levity and serious intent and you have a novel that's a class act.”
    —Minneapolis Star Tribune

    “Audacious. . . Everett [gives] Jim—who, we learn, prefers to be called James—his agency, letting his intelligence and compassion shine through. James is a poignant if often distressing reintroduction to a beloved character who deserved better.”
    —Time

    "Ingenious"
    —People

    “Percival Everett with virtuosic wit presents a spin on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
    —Vanity Fair

    "More than audacious. With James, Everett has mounted a high-stakes, revisionist raid not just on Twain’s imagination but on ours as a nation. . . [Everett is] a brilliantly sly novelist."
    —Garden & Gun

    "We may not be meeting Jim for the first time, but we’re introduced to him in a bold new way."
    —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    "In an astounding riposte, the much-lauded Everett (Dr. No, 2022) rewrites [Huck Finn] as a liberation narrative, told from Jim (or rather James’) point of view...An absolutely essential read."
    —Booklist (Starred Review)

    "The audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey...One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him."
    —Kirkus (Starred Review)

    “Ingenious … Jim’s wrenching odyssey concludes with remarkable revelations, violent showdowns, and insightful meditations on literature and philosophy. Everett has outdone himself.”
    —Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)

    "James is funny and horrifying, brilliant and riveting. In telling the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, Percival Everett delivers a powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history. I found myself cheering both the writer and his hero. Who should read this book? Every single person in the country.”
    —Ann Patchett

    "Percival Everett is a giant of American letters, and James is a canon-shatteringly great book. Unforgiving and compassionate, beautiful and brutal, a tragedy and a farce, this brilliant novel rewrites literary history to let us hear the voices it has long suppressed.”
    —Hernan Diaz, author of Trust

    “This is a brilliant, accessible, and very necessary companion to Huckleberry Finn.”
    —Dave Eggers, author of The Eyes and the Impossible

    “James is a masterpiece. I read it late this summer, and I have already recommended it to enough people to put it on the bestseller lists, in the classrooms, libraries, book clubs and hands in which it so rightly belongs.”
    —Francine Prose

    “Percival Everett is a genre.”
    —Kiese Laymon

    “Pure brilliance. Funny, wise, gracious; this may be Everett's best book yet.”
    —Bonnie Garmus

    “Percival Everett is an audacious, beguiling American master, whose wild trajectory has reached astonishing highs in the past decade. Now comes James, which enlists and devours not only Mark Twain’s novel but aspects of Melville, Ellison, and even Kafka to makes an irrevocable intervention into the canon. Everett is simply playing this game at a higher level, and it is the most serious game imaginable.”
    —Jonathan Lethem
    © Michael Avedon
    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. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award, The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University, and the Stowe Prize for Literary Activism. 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, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children. View titles by Percival Everett

    Educator Guide for James (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

    Classroom-based guides appropriate for schools and colleges provide pre-reading and classroom activities, discussion questions connected to the curriculum, further reading, and resources.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

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    Discussion Guide for James (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

    Provides questions, discussion topics, suggested reading lists, introductions and/or author Q&As, which are intended to enhance reading groups’ experiences.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

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    About

    PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view • In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg

    KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more.

    "Genius"—The Atlantic • "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."—Chicago Tribune • "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."—The Boston Globe • "Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."—The New York Times

    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 until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. 

    Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

    Excerpt

    Chapter 2

    That evening I sat down with Lizzie and six other children in our cabin and gave a language lesson. These were indispensable. Safe movement through the world depended on mastery of language, fluency. The young ones sat on the packed-dirt floor and I was on one of our two homemade stools. The hole in the roof pulled the smoke from the fire that burned in the middle of the shack.

    “Papa, why do we have to learn this?”

    “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” I said. “The only ones who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us. Perhaps I should say ‘when they don’t feel superior.’ So, let’s pause to review some of the basics.”

    “Don’t make eye contact,” a boy said.

    “Right, Virgil.”

    “Never speak first,” a girl said.

    “That’s correct, February,” I said.

    Lizzie looked at the other children and then back to me. “Never address any subject directly when talking to another slave,” she said.

    “What do we call that?” I asked.

    Together they said, “Signifying.”

    “Excellent.” They were happy with themselves, and I let that feeling linger. “Let’s try some situational translations. Something extreme first. You’re walking down the street and you see that Mrs. Holiday’s kitchen is on fire. She’s standing in her yard, her back to her house, unaware. How do you tell her?”

    “Fire, fire,” January said.

    “Direct. And that’s almost correct,” I said.

    The youngest of them, lean and tall five-year-old Rachel, said, “Lawdy, missum! Looky dere.”

    “Perfect,” I said. “Why is that correct?”

    Lizzie raised her hand. “Because we must let the whites be the ones who name the trouble.”

    “And why is that?” I asked.

    February said, “Because they need to know everything before us. Because they need to name everything.”

    “Good, good. You all are really sharp today. Okay, let’s imagine now that it’s a grease fire. She’s left bacon unattended on the stove. Mrs. Holiday is about to throw water on it. What do you say? Rachel?”

    Rachel paused. “Missums, that water gone make it wurs!”

    “Of course, that’s true, but what’s the problem with that?”

    Virgil said, “You’re telling her she’s doing the wrong thing.”

    I nodded. “So, what should you say?”

    Lizzie looked at the ceiling and spoke while thinking it through. “Would you like for me to get some sand?”

    “Correct approach, but you didn’t translate it.”

    She nodded. “Oh, Lawd, missums ma’am, you wan fo me to gets some sand?”

    “Good.”

    “‘Gets some’ is hard to say.” This from Glory, the oldest child. “The s’s.”

    “That’s true,” I said. “And it’s okay to trip over it. In fact, it’s good. You wan fo me to ge-gets s-s-some s-sand, Missum Holiday?”

    “What if they don’t understand?” Lizzie asked.

    “That’s okay. Let them work to understand you. Mumble sometimes so they can have the satisfaction of telling you not to mumble. They enjoy the correction and thinking you’re stupid. Remember, the more they choose to not want to listen, the more we can say to one another around them.”

    “Why did God set it up like this?” Rachel asked. “With them as masters and us as slaves?”

    “There is no God, child. There’s religion but there’s no God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward in the end. However, it apparently doesn’t say anything about their punishment. But when we’re around them, we believe in God. Oh, Lawdy Lawd, we’s be believin’. Religion is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when convenient.”

    “There must be something,” Virgil said.

    “I’m sorry, Virgil. You might be right. There might be some higher power, children, but it’s not their white God. However, the more you talk about God and Jesus and heaven and hell, the better they feel.”

    The children said together, “And the better they feel, the safer we are.”

    “February, translate that.”

    “Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.”

    “Nice.”
    Copyright © 2024 by Percival Everett. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

    Awards

    • WINNER | 2025
      Audie Awards
    • WINNER | 2025
      National Book Award
    • WINNER | 2025
      Pulitzer Prize (Fiction)
    • WINNER | 2024
      L.A. Times Book Prize (Fiction)
    • FINALIST | 2025
      Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction
    • AWARD | 2025
      British Book Award - Fiction Book of the Year
    • LONGLIST | 2025
      PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

    Reviews

    A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION

    NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AND VANITY FAIR, AMONG OTHERS...

    “The cult favorite author’s electric new work. . . James completely reimagines one-half of Finn’s famous duo, elevating him from unwitting sidekick to reluctant hero. . . Everett brings that laser-sharp wit to James, creating a radical new American adventure.”
    —W Magazine

    “James     offers page-turning excitement but also off-kilter philosophical picaresque. . . Gripping, painful, funny, horrifying, this is multi-level entertainment, a consummate performance to the last."
    —The Guardian

    “Blasted clean of Twain’s characterization, Jim emerges here as a man of great dignity, altruism, and intelligence. . . Clever, soulful, and full of righteous rage, [Jim’s] long-silenced voice resounds through this remarkable novel. Subversive and thrilling, James is destined to become a modern classic.”
    —Esquire

    “[A] careful and thought-provoking auditing of Huckleberry Finn. . . [James is] a kind of commentary or midrash, broadening our understanding of an endangered classic by bringing out the tragedy behind the comic facade. And that is no small thing. I expect that James will be spoken of as a repudiation of Huckleberry Finn, but a book like this can only be written in a spirit of engaged devotion. More than a correction, it’s a rescue mission. And maybe this time it will work.”
    —The Wall Street Journal

    “Heir to Mark Twain’s satirical vision, Everett turns a boyhood memoir into a neo-fugitive slave narrative thriller. . . Using erasure, Everett has produced a daring emendation. Redacting swaths of Huck Finn, he’s revealed another code: the untranslated story of James’s self-emancipation. . . James is a provocative, enlightening work of literary art.”
    —The Boston Globe

    “[Everett is a] prolific genius. . . A literary jukebox. . . If anyone is poised to casually (after all, he has bills) write a masterpiece that not only becomes instant canon but also sets a brush fire to the current ones it stands upon, it’s Everett. And that’s exactly what he’s done with James.”
    —Elle

    "Huck Finn’ Is a Masterpiece. This Retelling Just Might Be, Too."
    —The New York Times

    “[A] sly response to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. . . While The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn lampooned American society through the naiveté of its young narrator, James critiques White racism with the sharp insight of a character who’s felt the lash...What’s most striking, ultimately, is the way James both honors and interrogates Huck Finn, along with the nation that reveres it.”
    —The Washington Post

    "Percival Everett [is] our current Great American Novelist. . . [JAMES] is a masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own. . . I almost cannot imagine a future where teachers assign The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn without also assigning James alongside it. . . Everett is one of the most, if not the most interesting writers working today.”
    —The Chicago Tribune

    “To call James a retelling would be an injustice. Everett sends Mark Twain’s classic through the looking glass. What emerges is no longer a children’s book, but a blood-soaked historical novel stripped of all ornament. . . Genius.”
    —The Atlantic

    "Once you’ve picked up Everett’s James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you’ll know that only Everett could take on the task of allowing Mark Twain’s character Jim to show what was missing from the original story.”
    —The Los Angeles Times

    “Percival Everett continues his blistering pace of unforgettable fiction with James. . . Everett infuses this well-known story with a refreshingly contemporary jolt of agency, intelligence, and compassion, bringing new life to the character of Jim and the American epic.”
    —Chicago Review of Books

    “Using nuance and vulnerability to emphasize Jim’s humanity, [Everett leaves a] stamp on the literary landscape as he dismantles the stereotypes of the enslaved humans depicted in Twain’s classic. . . Percival Everett has accomplished more than humanizing a marginalized voice. He has, once again, delivered a seminal work of literary reparation.”
    —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    "Everett’s James isn’t out to displace Twain’s book. It’s carrying out a bolder, more ingenuous, and, characteristic of its author, more subversive agenda...Everett endows Jim with greater dimension and nuance than his original creator did. Huckleberry Finn provided Jim with courage, dignity, and virtue. James bestows upon him the greater, if more complicated, privilege of full (if not yet unfettered) humanity."
    —The New Republic

    “Playful and resonant. . . Everett has plenty of derisive fun here, dissecting and subverting damaging stereotypes. . . For a writer who often plays by few rules, Everett has drawn on what he knows best here – that freedom can be won, one word at a time. Add levity and serious intent and you have a novel that's a class act.”
    —Minneapolis Star Tribune

    “Audacious. . . Everett [gives] Jim—who, we learn, prefers to be called James—his agency, letting his intelligence and compassion shine through. James is a poignant if often distressing reintroduction to a beloved character who deserved better.”
    —Time

    "Ingenious"
    —People

    “Percival Everett with virtuosic wit presents a spin on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
    —Vanity Fair

    "More than audacious. With James, Everett has mounted a high-stakes, revisionist raid not just on Twain’s imagination but on ours as a nation. . . [Everett is] a brilliantly sly novelist."
    —Garden & Gun

    "We may not be meeting Jim for the first time, but we’re introduced to him in a bold new way."
    —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    "In an astounding riposte, the much-lauded Everett (Dr. No, 2022) rewrites [Huck Finn] as a liberation narrative, told from Jim (or rather James’) point of view...An absolutely essential read."
    —Booklist (Starred Review)

    "The audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey...One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him."
    —Kirkus (Starred Review)

    “Ingenious … Jim’s wrenching odyssey concludes with remarkable revelations, violent showdowns, and insightful meditations on literature and philosophy. Everett has outdone himself.”
    —Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)

    "James is funny and horrifying, brilliant and riveting. In telling the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, Percival Everett delivers a powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history. I found myself cheering both the writer and his hero. Who should read this book? Every single person in the country.”
    —Ann Patchett

    "Percival Everett is a giant of American letters, and James is a canon-shatteringly great book. Unforgiving and compassionate, beautiful and brutal, a tragedy and a farce, this brilliant novel rewrites literary history to let us hear the voices it has long suppressed.”
    —Hernan Diaz, author of Trust

    “This is a brilliant, accessible, and very necessary companion to Huckleberry Finn.”
    —Dave Eggers, author of The Eyes and the Impossible

    “James is a masterpiece. I read it late this summer, and I have already recommended it to enough people to put it on the bestseller lists, in the classrooms, libraries, book clubs and hands in which it so rightly belongs.”
    —Francine Prose

    “Percival Everett is a genre.”
    —Kiese Laymon

    “Pure brilliance. Funny, wise, gracious; this may be Everett's best book yet.”
    —Bonnie Garmus

    “Percival Everett is an audacious, beguiling American master, whose wild trajectory has reached astonishing highs in the past decade. Now comes James, which enlists and devours not only Mark Twain’s novel but aspects of Melville, Ellison, and even Kafka to makes an irrevocable intervention into the canon. Everett is simply playing this game at a higher level, and it is the most serious game imaginable.”
    —Jonathan Lethem

    Author

    © Michael Avedon
    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. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award, The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University, and the Stowe Prize for Literary Activism. 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, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children. View titles by Percival Everett

    Guides

    Educator Guide for James (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

    Classroom-based guides appropriate for schools and colleges provide pre-reading and classroom activities, discussion questions connected to the curriculum, further reading, and resources.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

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    Discussion Guide for James (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

    Provides questions, discussion topics, suggested reading lists, introductions and/or author Q&As, which are intended to enhance reading groups’ experiences.

    (Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

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    Additional formats

    Other Books by this Author

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