Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward is an American novelist and professor whose novels and memoirs portray Black life, family, grief, and inequality in the American South.
Sing, Unburied, Sing: A 2017 novel by Jesmyn Ward about a Mississippi family confronting grief, racism, and the past. Its haunted family journey exemplifies Ward's blend of contemporary Black life and the supernatural.
The Fire This Time: A 2016 essay anthology edited by Jesmyn Ward, whose contributors reflect on race in the United States. Ward's editorial project brings multiple voices to questions of Black history and contemporary life.
William Faulkner: An American novelist whose works often depict fictional Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi. Ward has described Faulkner's Mississippi fiction as part of the literary landscape she writes within.
The New York Times: An American newspaper that publishes journalism, criticism, and cultural coverage. Its book reviews and coverage place Ward's work within national literary debate rather than only regional contexts.
Salvage the Bones: A 2011 novel by Jesmyn Ward about a poor Black family on the Mississippi Gulf Coast before Hurricane Katrina. Its close-knit family and approaching storm make place and vulnerability central to the story.
Let Us Descend: A 2023 novel by Jesmyn Ward following an enslaved girl forced to travel from the Carolinas to New Orleans. It extends her engagement with Southern history into the era of slavery.
Jesmyn Ward's brother: The brother whose death is among the losses examined in Jesmyn Ward's memoir Men We Reaped. His life and death anchor the memoir's personal account of grief and structural inequality.
Autofiction: Fiction that draws on an author's life while presenting itself as a novel. Ward's memoirs explicitly identify as nonfiction, unlike novels that blur autobiography and fiction.
Men We Reaped: A 2013 memoir by Jesmyn Ward about five young Black men, including her brother, who died in her community. It connects personal loss to the community and racial inequalities that inform her fiction.
National Book Award for Fiction: An annual American literary prize recognizing a work of fiction by a U.S. author. Ward won the award for both Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing.