James adds Pulitzer Prize to trophy case

Winnipeg Free Press

10-05-2025

Percival Everett's novel James, a reimagining of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave, has landed another award, and a big one at that — the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Published in March 2024, James also won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award, and was a finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
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Everett's path to the Pulitzer wasn't a straightforward one. A May 6 New York Times article indicates James wasn't among the top three books among jurors were considering, but there was no consensus on a winner among the finalists — Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot, Stacey Levine's Mice 1961 and Gayl Jones's The Unicorn Woman — and Everett's book was brought in as a fourth option.
Other Pulitzer winners on the books front included Jason Roberts for Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life in the biography category, Tessa Hulls for Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir in the memoir/autobiography category, Marie Howe for New and Selected Poems in the poetry category and co-winners Edda L. Fields-Black for Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War and Kathleen DuVal for Native Nations: A Millennium in North America in the history category.
For a complete list of winners, including in the journalism and music categories, see wfp.to/WS2.
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The Dave Williamson Short Story Competition (or 'The Dave,' for short) has announced the seven-story short list for this year's prize, the third time the award has been presented.
Four of this year's finalists are from Manitoba — Sonia Marrone for Runner of the Woods, Lynne Martin for Finger Talk and Julia Rempel for Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies, all of whom are from Winnipeg, and Fisher Lavell of Swan River for Wild Animals I Have Known.
The other three finalists for the prize, which is administered by the Manitoba Writers' Guild, hail from Ontario — Hamilton's Agata Antonow for The Opposite of Comforting, Ottawa's Amber Fenik for Tides and Toronto's Sarah Israr for Chaiwali.
This year's judges were local authors Mitchell Toews, Zilla Jones and Michael Hutchinson.
The winners will be celebrated at a reception on Thursday, May 29 from 7-9 p.m. at Video Pool (second floor, 100 Arthur St.) , where Beyond Boundaries III, an anthology of winning stories, will be launched. To attend and for more information, see wfp.to/WSg.
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Della Steinke takes a frank look at having lived life on the edge in her new book Mothering to Mother Ink: A raw memoir of hard truths and second chances, which she launches at 2 p.m. today at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park location.
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Co-written by Kevin Zrill, the book chronicles the abuse Steinke suffered from her adoptive mother, living in her car as a teenager, an unplanned pregnancy, caring for her teenaged child recovering from a car accident, sobriety, helping gang members leave their pasts behind and more.
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The potential benefits of psychedelics, particularly around mental-health issues, has been thrust into the spotlight in recent years. In a new book published by Fernwood Publishing, two authors and academics explore whether corporations and the medical establishment are best-suited to lead the charge on psychedelics' newfound mainstream appeal.
Carleton University prof Jamie Brownlee and University of Winnipeg criminal justice prof Kevin Walby's Psychedelic Capitalism launches Thursday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson's Grant Park location.
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The University of Manitoba's Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture has announced that Winnipeg poet Melanie Dennis Unrau will be its next writer in residence, beginning this fall. Unrau's most recent book was 2024's Rough Poets: Reading Oil-Worker Poetry; her next collection of poetry, Goose, will be published in October by Assembly Press.
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Author and flutist Sonja Boon is the current writer in residence, and will serve until Unrau takes over.
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Ben SigurdsonLiterary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press's literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press's editing team before being posted online or published in print. It's part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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