Percival Everett (born December 22, 1956, Fort Gordon (now Fort Eisenhower), Georgia, U.S.) is an American writer whose works reflect a wide range of subjects and styles and often deal head-on with philosophy and preconceptions concerning race. He has authored more than 30 books of fiction and poetry, including the novels I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009), Telephone (2020), and James (2024), a retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His satiric novel Erasure (2001) was the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film American Fiction (2023). Until the release of James and the film adaption of Erasure, both of which garnered him mainstream fame, he was regarded as a cult writer in the United States. Everett has been described by The Washington Post as among “the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.”
Tabor, Nick. "Percival Everett." Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 September 2025.