An Interview With Percival Everett

In this episode, we chat with acclaimed author, poet, and painter Percival Everett to discuss his award-winning novel James—the 2024 National Book Award winner and Libro.fm’s Audiobook of the Year. Percival shares his thoughts on the magic of language, the role of place in storytelling, and the whirlwind experience of his recent book tour. He also reflects on balancing his many creative passions, his journey as a writer, and the profound power of literature.

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The idea of language is essential to my entire project as a person. The beauty of it is we’re capable of not understanding each other, yet still making meaning. And so that gives language of life of its own, however dependent it is on speaker and hearer. So starting with that and the magic of this thing we call language, it makes sense that anyone who wants to control us or hurt us, the first thing they do is take away language, take away certain words.”

—Percival Everett on the Libro.fm Podcast

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About our guest

Percival Everett is a celebrated American writer and a Distinguished Professor of English at USC whose 2024 novel James won the National Book Award. His work has earned numerous honors, including the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award, and the Windham-Campbell Prize. In 2023, his novel Erasure was adapted into the feature film American Fiction.