An Evening with Percival Everett
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7:00 p.m. | Asbury Hall at Babeville (341 Delaware Ave.)
- Free and open to the public
- Doors open 6:30 p.m.
- Cash bar
- Join us for a talk by acclaimed author of James, Percival Everett followed by discussion and Q+A moderated by Nicole M. Morris Johnson (Dept. of English, University at Buffalo)
- Post-talk book signing
- Books available for purchase courtesy of Talking Leaves Books
The organizers of the Buffalo Humanities Festival are delighted to announce author Percival Everett as the spotlight speaker of the 2024 Buffalo Humanities Festival: Hauntings (Sept. 20-21).
With the release of his 24thnovel, James, a retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from enslaved Jim’s perspective, Everett adds to an impressive list of titles. His most recent books include Dr. No (winner of the 2023 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure was adapted into the Oscar Award-winning (Best Adapted Screenplay) film American Fiction (2023). He has also written acclaimed short story and poetry collections.
‘A captivating response to Mark Twain’s classic that is both a bold exploration of a dark chapter in history and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.’
The 2024 Booker Prize Judges on James
Everett received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction—among many other literary awards—and was also the recipient of a 2023 Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.
An Evening with Percival Everett has been made possible through additional sponsorship by the UB Department of English Exhibit X Fiction Series.
Schedule
6:30 p.m. | Doors Open – cash bar available and books available for purchase from Talking Leaves Books
7:00 p.m. | An Evening with Percival Everett
- Welcome by Mishuana Goeman (Professor and Chair, Indigenous Studies, UB)
- Introductions by Elizabeth Otto (Professor of Modern Art History and Director, UB Humanities Institute) and Christina Milletti (Associate Professor of English and Executive Director, UB Humanities Institute)
- Spotlight Speaker: Percival Everett
- Q+A facilitated by Nicole Morris Johnson (Assistant Professor of English, UB)
8:30 p.m. | Book signing
About Nicole Morris Johnson | A writer, artist, and dramaturg, Nicole Morris Johnson is an assistant professor of English at the University at Buffalo. As a researcher and teacher, Morris Johnson specializes in the study of 20th-21st century African American and Caribbean writing, performance, and archives. Her current book project, titled “The Souths in Her: Black Women’s Poetics Beyond the Womb Abyss,” is under contract with Columbia University Press. Morris Johnson’s writing has appeared in Meridians, The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance, and MELUS among other platforms.
Buffalo Humanities Festival 
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