Tag: Pulitzer
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Linguicide and freedom: Percival Everett’s ‘James’
It was ‘my language,’ says our hero James, that ‘had so disturbed and frightened’ Judge Thatcher, the White slaver.1 But it was neither James’s profanity (which is non-existent), nor his angry delivery, that shocks the Judge. Instead, it’s James’s ability to speak conventional American-English. Up to this point the Judge, like all other White characters…