To work with the deserializer, simply iterate through the ArrayNode and append the values to your String[] sequentially.

ArrayNode contactsNode = (ArrayNode)object.get("contacts");
List<String> contactList = new ArrayList<String>();
for(JsonNode contact : contactsNode){
   contactList.add(contact.asText());
}
//if you need the String[]
contactList.toArray();

Give this a try, it should work perfectly. Thank you.

package example;

import java.io.IOException;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParseException;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;


class Identity {

    private String uniqueId;

    public String getUniqueId() {
        return uniqueId;
    }

    public void setUniqueId(String uniqueId) {
        this.uniqueId = uniqueId;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Identity [id=" + uniqueId + "]";
    }

}

public class Testing {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        String jsonData = "{\"id\" : \"A001\"}";

        //convert to object
        try {
            Identity id = mapper.readValue(jsonData, Identity.class);
            System.out.println(id);
        } catch (JsonParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (JsonMappingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who took the time to respond to my inquiry, and at the same time, I have come to the conclusion (provided below) that best addresses my needs. The use of only GSON without any additional libraries seems to be the most suitable approach for me. At the time of posing my question, I was unaware that com.google.gson.TypeAdapter is a more efficient tool than JsonSerializer/JsonDeserializer. Below is the solution I have discovered for my particular issue:

package mytypeadapter;
import com.google.gson.Gson;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder;
import com.google.gson.TypeAdapter;
import com.google.gson.stream.JsonReader;
import com.google.gson.stream.JsonWriter;

// Main class containing Person object
public class Main {
    static class Person{
       String name;
       int age;
       String[] bestFriends;

       // Default constructor
       Person() {}
       // Parameterized constructor
       Person(String name, int population, String... cities){
          this.name = name;
          this.age = population;
          this.bestFriends = cities;
       }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Nested PersonAdapter class extending TypeAdapter
        class PersonAdapter extends TypeAdapter<Person>{
            @Override
            public Person read (JsonReader jsonReader) throws IOException{
                Person country = new Person();
                List <String> cities = new ArrayList<>();
                jsonReader.beginObject();
                while(jsonReader.hasNext()){
                    switch(jsonReader.nextName()){
                        case "name":
                            country.name = jsonReader.nextString();
                            break;
                        case "age":
                            country.age = jsonReader.nextInt();
                            break;
                        case "bestFriends":
                            jsonReader.beginArray();
                            while(jsonReader.hasNext()){
                                cities.add(jsonReader.nextString());
                            }
                            jsonReader.endArray();
                            country.bestFriends = cities.toArray(new String[0]);
                            break;
                    }
                }
                jsonReader.endObject();
                return country;
            }

            @Override
            public void write (JsonWriter jsonWriter, Person country) throws IOException{
                jsonWriter.beginObject();
                jsonWriter.name("name").value(country.name);
                jsonWriter.name("age").value(country.age);
                jsonWriter.name("bestFriends");
                jsonWriter.beginArray();
                for(int i=0;i<country.bestFriends.length;i++){
                    jsonWriter.value(country.bestFriends[i]);
                }
                jsonWriter.endArray();
                jsonWriter.endObject();
            }
        }
        Gson gson = new GsonBuilder()
                    .registerTypeAdapter(Person.class, new PersonAdapter())
                    .setPrettyPrinting()
                    .create();
        Person person, personFromJson;
        person = new Person ("Vasya", 29, "Stan", "Nick", "Alex");
        String json = gson.toJson(person);
        personFromJson = new Person();
        personFromJson = gson.fromJson(json, personFromJson.getClass());
        System.out.println("Name = "+ personFromJson.name);
        System.out.println("Age = "+ personFromJson.age);
        for(String friend : personFromJson.bestFriends){
            System.out.println("Best friend "+ friend);
        }
    }
}