Book cover art inspired by the book, James, the (2024) Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Percival Everett. This visual interpretation and creative exploration was based on various themes, cultural topics and historical references mentioned in the book.
Official Book Information: Penguin Random House
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Official Book Description:
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.
Praise for James by Percival Everett:
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
Audio book version of James by Percival Everett
Percival Everett's story takes place in the world of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (written by Mark Twain and released in 1885). This visual interpretation uses pages from Huckleberry Finn as visual nods. The visual also explores block printing and letter printing that would have existed in the same era.
The image of the figure running is that of a runaway slave which was created as an advertistment for Fugitive Slaves to be captured around 1854. (New York Public Library)
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
Process Video: Exploring placement and making minor adjustments on the cover art.
