I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to Kapart.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been a part of the American literary canon for decades.

The acclaimed author Percival Everett turned this classic on its head in James, where the author finally gives a voice to an overlooked

character.

Everett is a distinguished professor of English at USC, whose 2001 book Ereacher, was adapted into American Fiction, which garnered five Oscar nominations

this year, including a win for best adapted screenplay for Court Jefferson.

In this conversation first recorded for Washington Post live on April 25th,

Professor Everett talks about why he read Huck Finn 15 times before writing James,

why he thinks the N-word belongs in the classic,

and why he wanted to give James control of his own story. It's not that I'm providing agency for Jim. That

agency already exists. It's not visible in Twain's text text but I'm simply allowing James an avenue for expression of

that agency. All right professor in his review of James Washington Post book critic Ron Charles wrote, and I'm quoting,

this is not a story told by a boy drifting down a river, it's a story told by a man racing against chaos to retrieve his family.

What inspired you to re-examine

an American classic like the Adventures

of Huckleberry Finn from James's perspective.

I think it was a longstanding dissatisfaction with the representation of enslaved people and literature and film. You know, it seems, there's a scene in Huck Finn where Jim has led to believe that he's been dreaming something that he knows very well has happened.

And this portrayal of a simple-minded beast more or less is unfair to the really complicated human beings that obviously people of course were.

And let's talk more about that dream that Jim has because in the book James, how do you, what is Jim dreaming about? What's happening in his dream?

Well, the scene I'm referring to is one where he and Huck Finn, where he and Hooker separated.

And I don't remember the scene all that well to tell the truth.

And much happens and, and Huck leads him to believe that none of it has actually happened.

...