Percival Everett ’82 AM became part of a very select club (including Annie Proulx, Colson Whitehead, and John Updike) this spring when his novel James—a re-imagining of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of Jim, Huck’s travel companion who’d escaped slavery—won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction just a few months after snagging the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction.

Everett, an English professor at the University of Southern California, has written more than 20 books, including novels, poetry, and short stories; his fiction crosses genres and tends to avoid easy categorization, although it often explores Black experiences in America (see our feature story, “Percival Everett Thinks You’re Smart,” Nov.–Dec. 2023). Early scenes in James closely follow Twain’s novel, but as the two characters separate and the protagonist travels alone, the tone turns more serious. “This is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful,” wrote the New York Times.