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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“Let Us Descend enveloped me. Jesmyn Ward's rich prose at the sentence level and her sheer determination through all 300 pages of this book are remarkable. I don't feel she once faltered. So many books peter out at the end or lose focus or motivation but not here...The book is a brutal retelling of slavery and the physical/spiritual/mental lengths people have to go to in order to survive with a piece of themselves. I think calling it a reimagining is a fault of publishing and I worry readers, especially Black American readers, will pick up this book hoping to be saved some of the violence and horror of other narratives around slavery. I wept when Annis was free, when she was listening to the toads at the pond. This book lives in me now. No doubt Jesmyn Ward will win the Pulitzer soon.”
— Fawzy • A Room Of One's Own Bookstore
Bookseller recommendation
“When Jesmyn Ward speaks you listen. Her voice in this new novel is so powerful. This novel should be in everyone's hands as it walks you through the life of a young slave girl before the Civil War. Will make a great book club book!”
— Suzanne • Page 158 Books
Bookseller recommendation
“Jesmyn Ward is one of the most important writers of our time. This may be her best to date. Heartbreaking and gorgeous, Annis carries us through her story of loss and brutal enslavement — a story of strength, love, enduring, and finding a way.”
— Jeanne Costello • Maria's Bookshop
Bookseller recommendation
“This magical novel illustrates the cruelties of slavery and the indomitable spirit of its protagonist in a descent into the hell of a pre-Civil War Louisiana sugar cane plantation. ”
— Mike • A Great Good Place for Books
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • Instant New York Times Bestseller • Named one of the best books of 2023 by The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, Time, The New Yorker, and more.
“Nothing short of epic, magical, and intensely moving.” —Vogue • “A novel of triumph.” —The Washington Post • “Harrowing, immersive, and other-worldly.” —People
From “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub)—comes a haunting masterpiece about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War that’s destined to become a classic.
Let Us Descend describes a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. A journey that is as beautifully rendered as it is heart wrenching, the novel is “[t]he literary equivalent of an open wound from which poetry pours” (NPR).
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this “[s]earing and lyrical…raw, transcendent, and ultimately hopeful” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet.
Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.
Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.
Reviews
"This audiobook puts into practice the idea that speaking quietly can have a more significant impact than shouting. Ward herself provides the quiet, gentle voice that tells the story of Annis, a young slave. With a patient, calm delivery, Ward narrates Annis's journey from North Carolina to New Orleans, and, while her tribulations are heartbreaking in themselves, somehow Ward's measured voice makes them all the more so with her sorrowful tone. The plot and prose have slow, belabored stretches, but they don't detract significantly from the impact of the novel as a whole. Ward does a fine job of holding the listener's attention during those times, and the horror of Annis's experiences is made bearable because of Ward's understated strength." "Ward’s fiercely engrossing but quietly told narrative personalizes the horrors of enslavement in the United States, making this an essential purchase for all collections." Expand reviewsWant the printed book?
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