Novel 'James' wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize

With its unique reinterpretation of the classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, American writer Percival Everett's novel James has just won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

The judges said that through "a perfect re-examination", Everett "exposed the absurdity of apartheid, offering a fresh perspective on the quest for family and freedom".

The Vietnamese version of James's novel published by Rainbow Books and Lao Dong Publishing House was released last March.

PHOTO: Publisher

Released in 2024, James features the main character Jim - a black slave - who appeared in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain two centuries ago. However, realizing that Twain's story had only been told from the perspective of white people, Percival Everett took this character as the center, thereby adding details from Jim's perspective that Mark Twain had overlooked when focusing too much on Finn. On that basis, Everett not only touched on the surface issues - the oppression that black people had to endure, honoring the heritage of his community... but also went deeper when exposing the hypocrisy of many philosophical ideas about equality.

Last year, the work caused a big stir when it was nominated for most of the prestigious literary awards in the United States, such as being a finalist for the Booker Prize and winning the National Book Award; it was continuously voted as one of the 10 best novels by prestigious newspapers.

Over the years, Percival Everett has emerged as one of the most important writers of his generation, having been nominated for the Booker Prize in 2024 (for James ) and 2022 (for The Trees ). In addition, the film American Fiction, adapted from his novel Erasure (2001), won the 2024 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tieu-thuyet-james-thang-giai-pulitzer-2025-185250506223729015.htm