Following his National Book Award win in the fall, seasonal Vineyarder Percival Everett won the Pulitzer Prize this week for his novel James.

The book is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, the 1884 novel by Mark Twain, through the eyes and words of the slave Jim.

Mr. Everett beat out finalists Rita Bullwinkel (Headshot: A Novel), Stacey Levine (Mice 1961), and Gayl Jones (The Unicorn Woman).

Mr. Everett is the distinguished professor of English at the University of Southern California, and for the past two decades has spent part of his summers on the Vineyard.

In an interview with the Vineyard Gazette during the run-up to an appearance at last year’s Martha’s Vineyard Author Series, Mr. Everett talked about the process of writing James.

“Jim is not rendered fully in Twain’s novel,” Mr. Everett said in the interview. “Twain wasn’t trying to tell his story. And he was ill-equipped to tell Jim’s story. So I decided I would tell it from Jim’s point of view, and allow his agency to come through.”

“I had to divorce myself from Twain and his language,” he continued. “I wanted to inhabit the world of Huck Finn, but not the text.”

Mr. Everett said that spending time on the Vineyard helps his creative process.

“The Island is a comfortable place to be. If I’m not comfortable I can’t write.”