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At a sold-out Kentucky Theatre in downtown Lexington Tuesday night, Percival Everett once again demonstrated the power of the written word to challenge established structures and norms, query the human condition, and change the way we see the world.
Brought to Lexington through a partnership between University of Kentucky Libraries and the Lexington Public Library, Everett was the featured speaker for the annual Earle C. Clements Lecture-Symposium.
"Lexington has a strong community of readers, and seeing so many people come together to hear Percival Everett is a wonderful reminder of the power of reading to connect, inspire, and spark meaningful conversations,” said Heather Dieffenbach, Executive Director of Lexington Public Library. “We're grateful for our partnership with UK Libraries and the opportunity to bring nationally celebrated authors and their stories to our community.”
"We're very thankful to Lexington Public Library and the Kentucky Theatre for helping us make this exciting event possible," said Doug Way, Dean of UK Libraries. "Tuesday's event was another demonstration of literature's remarkable capacity not only to touch people and speak to the complexities of our time, but also to create a commons in which we can collectively grapple with the most pressing questions of who we are and who we aspire to be."
The word has proven to be particularly powerful when wielded by Everett, one of the most inventive and incisive writers in contemporary literature, whose genre-bending work, across a variety of styles and formats, leaves no stone unturned as it probes the social and cultural underpinnings of 21st century American life.
Everett’s latest novel, JAMES, was published in March of 2024 to great critical acclaim, winning both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
His other titles include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier.
He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
A Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California, Everett lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children.
The annual Clements Lecture-Symposium honors the legacy of Earle C. Clements, who served as governor of Kentucky and represented the state in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
Generous gifts by Bess Clements Abell established the Earl C. Clements Graduate Research Fellowship, the Earle C. Clements Innovation in Education Award, and the Earle C. Clements Memorial Endowment Fund, which is used to organize the Lecture-Symposium.
“UK Libraries is grateful for the support of the Clements Abell family, which has allowed us to give back to the community in so many ways,” said Deirdre Scaggs, Associate Dean for Research & Discovery. “By bringing in speakers with a national voice we are promoting the ideals that Clements believed in and supporting positive discourse in American life, culture, and politics.”
As the premier research library in the Commonwealth, UK Libraries empowers lifelong learners to discover, create, and connect by providing ever-expanding access to quality information and collaborating with academic and creative communities worldwide to advance knowledge, enhance scholarship, and preserve the history and culture of the Commonwealth. More information about UK Libraries can be found on its website.
