Percival Everett's 'James' is a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner prize for fiction

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NEW YORK (AP) — “James,” Percival Everett ’s acclaimed reworking of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” is a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.

Everett's version of Mark Twain's classic, now narrated by the enslaved title character, already won the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize and the Carnegie Medal for fiction.

The other nominees announced Monday are ’Pemi Aguda's “Ghostroots,” Susan Muaddi Darraj's “Behind You Is the Sea,” Garth Greenwell's “Small Rain” and Danzy Senna's "Colored Television."

“These five books moved us with their compassion, their imagination, their quiet artistry,” according to a statement from the judging panel. “They view our world from oblique and unsettling angles while giving us new ways to comprehend the often unimaginable: illness, displacement, enslavement, exile. Yet they also burst with humor and light, with characters who gleam and sing from the page.”

The winner will be announced in early April. First prize comes with a $15,000 cash award. Runners-up each receive $5,000. Previous honorees include Philip Roth, Ann Patchett and Yiyun Li.