Percival Everett — The Art of Contemporary Fiction
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'James' discusses how he reimagines literary traditions to help readers see the world differently.
Date & Time at 7:00 PM EST
Location Museum of Fine Arts Boston Boston, US
Organizer Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Why we picked this
The Pulitzer winner who reimagined Huck Finn from Jim's perspective discusses the craft of flipping literary traditions inside out. At the MFA.
Percival Everett’s “James” retold Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man. It won the Pulitzer Prize and became one of the most celebrated novels of the decade. Everett’s broader body of work — more than thirty books spanning genres — is defined by a willingness to take familiar literary forms and crack them open to reveal what they’ve been hiding.
At the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, he discusses the craft behind this approach: how to take well-known styles and tropes, flip them on their heads, and create fiction that changes how readers see the world.