Awards

• Commended for Kirkus Prize (Fiction) 2023

Overview

"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."

Full Product Details

9781797161501

Table of Contents

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.""-- ""AudioFile Magazine"""

"""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.""--Beth Farrell ""Library Journal"" ""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.""-- ""AudioFile Magazine"""

Author Information

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.

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