Percival Everett, whose novel Erasure was turned into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction, had the idea for his latest book, James, when he was playing tennis.

The Booker Prize-nominated author had just hit a ball “wildly” out of court.

“I stopped and thought, ‘I wonder if anyone has written Huck Finn from Jim’s point of view?'”.

They hadn’t, so Everett did.

The writer adds this particular thought was nothing to do with his game, just that it was “the way most ideas come”.

Critics have called Everett’s resulting novel a “masterpiece” describing him as “an American master at the peak of his powers”.

The hero of his new novel is – famously – the runaway slave Jim, in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, published in 1884.

Read Original Article