Percival Everett

Percival Everett was born in Fort Gordon, Georgia, where his father was stationed as a sergeant in the United States Army. His family moved to Columbia, South Carolina when he was young. Everett graduated from the University of Miami with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and earned his master’s degree in fiction from Brown University in 1982. Everett’s literary career is wide-ranging in terms of genre and theme: he has written westerns, mythological retellings, philosophical fiction, thrillers, mysteries, and satire. His most well-known novel, Erasure (2001), is a metafictional work satirizing the publishing industry’s tendency to pigeonhole Black authors. In 2023, the novel was adapted into the film American Fiction, which won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Other notable works include I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009)—a novel whose protagonist bears a physical resemblance to actor Sidney Poitier and that explores issues of racial segregation and identity—and The Trees (2021)—a novel about historical and contemporary lynchings. The Trees won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Everett teaches as a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Danzy Senna, and family.