When Literature Meets Radio Drama

Percival Everett’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel James finds new life on BBC Radio 4, bringing the powerful story of Jim’s journey to audio format.

A Prize-Winning Voice

Percival Everett’s James, which won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, tells the story from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved character from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The novel has swept literary awards this year. Published in March 2024 by Doubleday, James has received a wave of national and international recognition, winning the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Now BBC Radio 4 brings this acclaimed work to life through audio drama, with actor Rhashan Stone reading the adaptation.

The Uncomfortable Truth of Performance

The BBC Radio episode highlights a particularly striking scene where Jim encounters a minstrel troupe. The minstrel show was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century, performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. Minstrel shows began with the creation of the character of “Jim Crow” by white performer Thomas Rice in 1828, and his eccentric song and dance soon became a national sensation. The irony of Jim being asked to perform in blackface exposes the absurdity of these racist entertainment forms that dominated American culture for decades.

Rewriting History

Unlike in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where he is depicted as simple, credulous, and superstitious, Everett’s Jim is skeptical, deeply calculating, and secretly more literate and erudite than most of the white people around him. Indeed, Everett’s Jim is an ironic inversion of Twain’s, insofar as the near totality of Jim’s personality in Twain’s novel is revealed, in Everett’s novel, to be a self-preservationist act put on to avert white suspicion. This reimagining gives agency to a character who was previously defined by others’ perceptions.

From Page to Airwaves

Radio drama offers a unique medium for Everett’s story. The audio format allows listeners to focus entirely on Jim’s voice and perspective without visual distractions. The Pulitzer Prize Board described James as “an accomplished reconsideration of Huckleberry Finn that gives agency to Jim to illustrate the absurdity of racial supremacy and provide a new take on the search for family and freedom.” Through BBC Radio 4’s adaptation, this powerful narrative reaches new audiences, proving that great literature transcends its original format.

A Modern Classic

Everett is widely regarded as one of the most original and prolific voices in American literature. His genre-defying body of work spans satire, Westerns and experimental prose. His 2001 novel Erasure was adapted into the Oscar-winning 2023 film American Fiction. With James now finding success across multiple media platforms, Everett continues to challenge readers and listeners to confront uncomfortable truths about American history and identity.