Stowe Center announces 2025 Stowe Prize event with winner Percival Everett on Sept. 17
The Stowe Center for Literary Activism has announced the details for an event featuring the winner of the 2025 Stowe Prize for Literary Activism, acclaimed author Percival Everett for James: A Novel (Doubleday, 2024).
The discussion with Everett and a social justice fair will be held on Wednesday, September 17 at Immanuel Congregational Church located at 10 Woodland Street in Hartford. The program will be at 6:30pm in the main sanctuary of the church. It will be preceded by a free social justice fair in Immanuel Congregational’s Fellowship Hall at 5:30pm. There is a private Sponsor Reception at 5pm with Percival Everett.
General Admission tickets are free with reservation required. There are Friend tickets available for $65 per person which include priority seating and a pre-signed copy of James. Patron tickets are $300 per person and include admission to the Sponsor Reception with Mr. Everett, priority seating at the event, and a pre-signed copy of James.
To register for the public program, visit StoweCenter.org/James. Space is limited, and tickets are first come, first served. A reservation is not required to visit the social justice fair. Parking is available on Woodland Street and The Mark Twain House & Museum parking lot. There is limited on-site accessible parking for mobility impaired patrons at Immanuel Congregational Church.
Funds raised for the Stowe Prize help sustain the mission of the Stowe Center to encourage social justice and literary activism, preserve the unique collections and grounds, and support our innovative programming.
James: A Novel
This, the eleventh Stowe Prize awarded, is the first work of fiction to win. James is a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told by James, known as “Jim” in Mark Twain’s 1885 novel. “But to call James a retelling would be an injustice,” writes Tyler Austin Harper in The Atlantic Magazine (April 2024). Everett offers a more truthful representation of an enslaved person, one free of many of the stereotypes cast upon Black people throughout the American literary canon—stereotypes that Harriet Beecher Stowe also perpetuated in her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Stowe Prize Selection Committee member Dr. Lucinda Canty championed James from the start. The Director of Lucinda’s House in Windsor, Connecticut, Canty is dedicated to creating environments where women of color feel safe, supported, and can become an active part in eliminating structural barriers to improve their overall health and wellbeing. She said of the novel: “James represents storytelling at its finest—so exceptional that at times you forget James is a work of fiction.” She added: “The narrative served as a means to understand the value of history, especially in defining one’s self. I can’t remember the last time I read anything that evoked such strong emotions of anger, fear, intrigue, hope, and love.”
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