Percival Everett’s most recent novel, James (2024), is a retelling of Mark Twain’s 1884 novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
A crucial difference between the novels is that whereas it is a white boy narrating the original story, in James, the narrator is Jim, an escaped enslaved man.
Jim says he was sold when he was born and then sold again.
Jim – James – may be an escaped enslaved man, but he is also a literate man conversing during hallucinations and in his dreams with the enlightenment greats – Voltaire, Rousseau, John Locke.