James

James is a profound and ferociously funny novel from one of our greatest living writers, Percival Everett.



The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he flees to nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town.

So begins a dangerous and transcendent journey along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. And together, the unlikely pair embark on the most life-changing odyssey of them all . . .

Review

A captivating response to Mark Twain’s classic that is both a bold exploration of a dark chapter in history and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit -- The 2024 Booker Prize Judges

I’m demanding that you read Percival Everett’s novel James, in which Everett takes the camera from Twain’s Huck Finn and hands it to the slave, Jim. Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them -- Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha

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, bestselling author of Tom Lake

Pure brilliance. Funny, wise, gracious; this may be Everett's best book yet -- Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

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, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust

My favourite novel this year was James by Percival Everett. By giving the runaway Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn his own voice (or voices) and his dignity – James, not Jim – he adds a dimension that’s missing from the original, and, I think, improves on it -- Salman Rushdie, The Observer, 'Books of the Year'

Scorchingly funny . . . A significant and exhilarating corrective to history, told in the most compelling of voices -- The Sunday Times, 'Books of the Year'

Playful and viciously comic . . . James might be the book of the year and ought to have won the Booker Prize -- The Daily Telegraph, 'Books of the Year'

Percival Everett’s magisterial satire James [is] an essential rewrite of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn -- The Guardian, 'Books of the Year;

One of the novels of the year . . . [It] is both true to the original and turns it entirely on its head. Crackling with insight and wit -- Daily Mail, 'Books of the Year'

You will never think of Mark Twain's seminal 19th-century novel in the same way again, as Everett's version is subversive, clever and exciting, while also being a rollicking good read -- i newspaper, 'Books of the Year'

James by Percival Everett [is] such a brilliant retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the enslaved Jim, resisting and rebelling against underestimation and oppression. A wise and profound book – and funny too -- Kit de Waal,The Observer, 'Books of the Year'

About the Author

Percival Everett is the author of over thirty books, including Telephone, Dr No, The Trees, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and won the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, and Erasure, which was adapted into the major Oscar-winning film American Fiction. He has received the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction, has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. James was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller in hardback, and it has been shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and the 2024 National Book Award, and was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Fiction. Percival Everett lives in Los Angeles.