Author
Jesmyn Ward
Birth Date
April 1, 1977
(49 Years)
Associated Country
United States
Jesmyn Ward is an award-winning American novelist and memoirist known for her powerful portrayals of life in the American South. She was born in Berkeley and raised in Mississippi, a region that deeply shapes the settings and themes of her work.
Ward is best known for her novels Salvage the Bones (2011) and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), both of which won the National Book Award, making her the first woman to receive the prize twice for fiction. Her writing explores themes of race, poverty, family, and resilience, often centered on the fictional town of Bois Sauvage. She is also the author of the memoir Men We Reaped (2013), a deeply personal reflection on loss and community.
Known for her lyrical prose and emotional intensity, Ward is widely regarded as one of the most important voices in contemporary American literature. Her work gives voice to marginalized communities while offering profound insight into the human condition.
Ward is best known for her novels Salvage the Bones (2011) and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), both of which won the National Book Award, making her the first woman to receive the prize twice for fiction. Her writing explores themes of race, poverty, family, and resilience, often centered on the fictional town of Bois Sauvage. She is also the author of the memoir Men We Reaped (2013), a deeply personal reflection on loss and community.
Known for her lyrical prose and emotional intensity, Ward is widely regarded as one of the most important voices in contemporary American literature. Her work gives voice to marginalized communities while offering profound insight into the human condition.
Books
True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that...
Let Us Descend 2024
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...
Sing, Unburied, Sing 2018
Bois Sauvage, Book 3
Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate...
Bois Sauvage, Book 1
Joshua and Christophe are twins, raised by a blind grandmother and a large extended family in rural Bois Sauvage, on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. They’ve just finished high school and need to find jobs,...
The Fire This Time 2017
In light of recent tragedies and widespread protests across the nation, The Progressive magazine republished one of its most famous pieces: James Baldwin’s 1962 “Letter to My Nephew,” which was later...
Men We Reaped 2014
In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life-to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses,...
Salvage the Bones 2012
Bois Sauvage, Book 2
A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show...