James

Percival Everett's 2024 novel is a retelling of Mark Twain's 1884 classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, it shifts the narrative perspective entirely to Jim, the enslaved man who accompanies Huck Finn down the Mississippi River.

Everett introduces a brilliant mechanic where James is highly literate and speaks in perfectly articulate standard English, but deliberately alters his speech to use a subservient dialect around white characters. This code-switching serves as a literal survival tactic against the brutal realities of slavery in the antebellum South.

The novel was widely acclaimed upon its release in early 2024 and became an instant bestseller. It won the 2024 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and was subsequently nominated for the 2024 Booker Prize, further cementing Everett's status in modern literature.

Yes, Huckleberry Finn is a prominent character in the novel, though his actions and adolescent logic are reinterpreted through James's much more mature, cynical worldview. The famous scene where Huck apologizes to Jim for a prank takes on a deeply profound psychological weight in this new narrative.