On the lists for the National Book Award and the Booker Award, "James: A Novel," is a retelling of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. It's the 24th novel from author Percival Everett.
"I'm not, probably, the first person to say he's one of the great American writers you've never heard of," suggested Christina Milletti, Associate Professor of English at the University at Buffalo and Executive Director of the Buffalo Humanities Institute.
Everett will be in town this weekend for the 11th annual Buffalo Humanities Festival. He'll be speaking Friday night at Asbury Hall at Babeville, a free event that requires registration. As of Tuesday morning, just over 200 tickets were still available. More information can be found here.
"He's so prolific, but each book is so beautifully crafted and thought out, and weaves together so many layers of genre and storytelling," said Libby Otto, Director of the Buffalo Humanities Institute.
Milletti, who has brought Everett to Buffalo on previous occasions, says his writings "look at embedded racism in our culture but looks at it from the perspective, because he's a fiction writer, from the nature of language."
Hollywood has taken note. Everett's 2001 novel "Erasure" was the basis of the 2023 film "American Fiction," which won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
"He's interested in every one of his books in the power of language to oppress but also create pockets of resistance. To be a source of refuge. And to enable people to write their own stories," Milletti said.
The Humanities Festival continues Saturday at the Central Library in downtown Buffalo with a series of talks and discussions from area scholars including professors from the University at Buffalo, Niagara University, Buffalo State University, and Canisius University. A list of the scheduled events can be found here.
The day will finish with a festival happy hour/reception at Big Ditch Brewing.
The festival's theme is "Hauntings," a chance to explore "the marginalized, forgotten and overlooked materials that have historically been with us and bring them for public viewing," Milletti explained.
"What we see among our colleagues are so many people who are interested in saying, 'Okay, we have this history but what's the history we haven't looked at yet' and how does that tell us more about our own society but also the richness of the past that we are sometimes missing by privileging single, dominant narratives," Otto said.
"I think you can say a lot about society by what society tries to overlook," Milletti added.
"By looking at the margins we are actually thinking about what's happening at the center. Maybe what needs to be changed. Maybe what needs to be updated."
