About Let Us Descend
From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’” — Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is 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.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. 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 of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a 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, a masterwork for the ages.
- Complete Title: Let Us Descend
- Format: Hardcover
- Language: English
- Number of Pages: 320
- Publication Time: October 24, 2023
- Publisher: Scribner
- ISBN: 198210449X
- ISBN13: 9781982104498
About Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward is the author of Where the Line Bleeds, Salvage the Bones, and Men We Reaped. She is a former Stegner Fellow (Stanford University) and Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Tulane University.
Her work has appeared in BOMB, A Public Space and The Oxford American.
Reviews Let Us Descend
Jesmyn Ward is brilliant and no one writes like her. This novel is lush and painful and expertly rendered. Annis’s story is so rich with detail, and the prose is suffused with a sensory vibe I found…
Roxane
Subtle and Symbolic but Needs Study GuideThe lyrical prose of Let Us Descend is absolutely spell binding, and the author narrating the audiobook is a brilliant pairing. This is particularly important…
Lisa of Troy
4.5 stars It’s brutal to read and not surprisingly. It’s about slavery after all . But that doesn’t mean it can’t be beautifully written. It’s written by Jesmyn Ward, after all . She takes u…
Angela M
3.5 stars, rounded downLet Us Descend is a beautifully written book, but a hard story to read. It’s a hard book to rate as I adored the writing but felt the story was lacking. Taking place in the ye…
Liz
Annis is a teenage daughter of a slave and the master of the house.She is sold south from the rice fields of the Carolinas to walk the miles long march of the slaves to the slave markets of New Orlean…
Karen
Most everyone who reads this novel will love it, because it’s Jesmyn Ward and she’s a genius, because Dante, because it’s about the biggest story one American can tell to another American, becau…
Lark Benobi
“The first weapon I ever held was my Mother’s hand”Jesmyn Ward’s central character, is a teenage girl. Annis. She is marched off to New Orleans after her Mama was sold off. Her voice, memories…
Elyse Walters
It absolutely pains me to say that I did not enjoy this book very much. I have been a fan of Jesmyn Ward for years and have thoroughly enjoyed, if not loved every book she has written. That being said…
Maxwell
“Let Us Descend,” the title of Jesmyn Ward’s overwhelming new novel, alludes to Dante’s “Inferno,” but her story tells the tale of a real hell on earth. In one sense, that’s long been Wa…