Percival Everett

Percival Everett is the author of more than thirty books of fiction and poetry and a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He has described himself as "pathologically ironic" and has played around with numerous genres such as western fiction, mysteries, thrillers, satire, philosophical fiction and poetry. His books are often satirical, aimed at exploring race and identity issues in the United States. Everett is best known for his novels Erasure, adapted as the Academy Award-winning film American Fiction, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, and The Trees. His recent book, James, is a reimagining of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of runaway slave Jim. Everett has been awarded the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction, Creative Capital and Guggenheim awards, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award.