Let Us Descend
An Oprah's Book Club Pick
1st Edition
Published on 24. October 2023
320 pages
978-1-5266-6673-4 (ISBN)
Description
* AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK *
'A spectacular achievement' ANTHONY DOERR
'Extravagantly beautiful' DAILY MAIL
'One of the greatest writers of all time' JACQUELINE WOODSON
'Extraordinary' GUARDIAN
'The best book I've read in years' LOUISE KENNEDY
-----------------------
The first weapon I ever held was my mother's hand.
On a slave plantation in the Carolinas, Annis has survived in the light of her mother's resilience, comforted by stories of her African warrior grandmother. Everything she knows, she learned from her mother - how to fight, how to be strong, how to grow up in a world shrouded in darkness.
When she is sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, Annis must venture onward through the rich but unforgiving landscapes of the American South alone: from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans, and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Searching for relief in memories of her mother, she opens herself to a world beyond her own, teeming with spirits of earth, water, history and myth.
A reimagining of American slavery as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching, Let Us Descend offers a magnificent portrait of the strength of the human spirit and its ability to emerge from darkness into light. This is a story of beauty, love, rebirth and reclamation - a masterwork for the ages.
Praise for Sing, Unburied, Sing
'A must' Margaret Atwood
'One of the most important writers in America today' Ann Patchett
'Ward is a lyrical, visceral storyteller' Daily Mail
'A searing, urgent read' Celeste Ng
'Plays out like a grand epic ... Staggering' Marlon James
'A spectacular achievement' ANTHONY DOERR
'Extravagantly beautiful' DAILY MAIL
'One of the greatest writers of all time' JACQUELINE WOODSON
'Extraordinary' GUARDIAN
'The best book I've read in years' LOUISE KENNEDY
-----------------------
The first weapon I ever held was my mother's hand.
On a slave plantation in the Carolinas, Annis has survived in the light of her mother's resilience, comforted by stories of her African warrior grandmother. Everything she knows, she learned from her mother - how to fight, how to be strong, how to grow up in a world shrouded in darkness.
When she is sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, Annis must venture onward through the rich but unforgiving landscapes of the American South alone: from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans, and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Searching for relief in memories of her mother, she opens herself to a world beyond her own, teeming with spirits of earth, water, history and myth.
A reimagining of American slavery as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching, Let Us Descend offers a magnificent portrait of the strength of the human spirit and its ability to emerge from darkness into light. This is a story of beauty, love, rebirth and reclamation - a masterwork for the ages.
Praise for Sing, Unburied, Sing
'A must' Margaret Atwood
'One of the most important writers in America today' Ann Patchett
'Ward is a lyrical, visceral storyteller' Daily Mail
'A searing, urgent read' Celeste Ng
'Plays out like a grand epic ... Staggering' Marlon James
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
ISBN-13
978-1-5266-6673-4 (9781526666734)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
08/2024
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€13.50
Available immediately
Book
10/2023
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€24.00
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Person
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 was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing, and is the winner of two National Book Awards for Fiction for both Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones. 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.
Content
- Cover
- CHAPTER 1 Mama's Bladed Hands
- CHAPTER 2 Walking Ropeward
- CHAPTER 3 Line of Loss
- CHAPTER 4 Rivers Wend South
- CHAPTER 5 City of Woe
- CHAPTER 6 Surrender
- CHAPTER 7 Marvel of Mere Dark
- CHAPTER 8 Salt and Smoke Offerings
- CHAPTER 9 Burning Men
- CHAPTER 10 Sweet Harvest
- CHAPTER 11 Thin and Smudge
- CHAPTER 12 Ferrywomen
- CHAPTER 13 Once More Saw Stars
- Acknowledgements
