Percival Everett, Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar on Barack Obama's summer reading list for 2024
The former U.S. president's latest reading list features authors who've previously appeared on CBC Radio
Former U.S. president Barack Obama has released the 2024 edition of his summer reading list and it features international authors including Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar and Percival Everett.
While on previous lists, Obama has recommended Canadian titles including Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Velvet Was the Night and Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility, this year's edition features no Canadians.
On Obama's 2024 list is Everett's novel James which retells the story of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the enslaved Jim's point of view, Abdurraqib's exploration of success and basketball There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension and Akbar's novel Martyr! which follows a young man dealing with loss, violence and family legacy.
- Percival Everett's The Trees imagines a world where the horrors of lynching are avenged
- Claire Keegan, Percival Everett among six international authors on 2022 Booker Prize shortlist
Everett, an English professor at the University of Southern California, is an American author who has written several books including Dr. No, a finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction, Telephone, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the Booker Prize finalist The Trees.
He won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for American Fiction, the movie adapted from his novel Erasure.
Everett spoke with Eleanor Wachtel on Writers & Company about his novel The Trees in 2022.
His 2024 novel James asks the question: what if Huckleberry Finn was told through Jim's perspective? It follows Jim who is going to be sold to a man in New Orleans as he escapes and figures out what to do. When he meets Huck Finn who has faked his death, the two embark on a journey down the Mississippi River toward the Free States.
James brings Jim's agency, empathy and personal life to the familiar narrative, putting The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a whole new light.
Ohio-based Abdurraqib is an American poet and writer. His essay collection A Little Devil in America won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Obama previously included A Little Devil in America on his 2022 Summer Reading List.
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension is a collection of ruminations on the meaning of success, who is perceived to deserve it and the concept of role models all through the lens of basketball in the 1990s.
Through themes of comfort, hope and solidarity, Abdurraqib paints the rich history of the golden era of basketball through a personal telling of his own experience with the sport growing up.
Abdurraqib discussed A Little Devil in America with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on The Sunday Magazine in 2021.
Obama's list also features Akbar's novel Martyr!. Akbar is an Iranian-American writer, editor and poet living in Iowa City. His poems have appeared in publications including The New Yorker and The Paris Review. His previous books include Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf.
In 2020 Akbar spoke with Tom Power on Q to discuss his passion for poetry and life as an Iranian-American in the U.S.
LISTEN | Kaveh Akbar speaks with Tom Power:
Martyr! tells the story of Cyrus Shams who is grappling with the death of his mother after her plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf and his father's legacy of working at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus, who struggles with addiction, becomes obsessed with his own history and the martyrs in his family.
His exploration sends him down a path that suggests his mother might not have been who she said she was.
Other books on Obama's summer reading list include Memory Piece by Lisa Ko, Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman and The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley.
